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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



HOW TO GET STRONG 



AND 



HOW TO STAY SO 



BY 



WILLIAM BLAIKIE 




I 



*iGffie# 



ip 



• 0.A2M.JL. 

> 1879. ^ 



NEW YORK 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 

FRANKLIN SQUARE 

1879 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by 

HARPER & BROTHERS, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



TO 

AECHIBALD MACLAKEN 

WHO HAS PROBABLY DONE MORE THAN ANY ONE ELSE NOW 

LIVING TO POINT OUT THE BENEFITS RESULTING 
\ 

FROM RATIONAL PHYSICAL EXERCISE, AND 

HOW TO ATTAIN THOSE BENEFITS 

THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY 

WMmttb 



PREFACE 



In a few vacation days in August, 1877, an 
article was written which appeared in Harper's 
Magazine for May, 1878, entitled "Free Muscular 
Development." The Boston Journal of Chemis- 
try urged the Messrs. Harper to reprint it in their 
"Half -hour Series." The latter thereupon ex- 
pressed a wish that the subject therein considered 
might be gone into more extensively ; and as their 
scrap-books showed that the article had been 
widely and favorably received by the press, there 
seemed fair reason to hope that a little broader 
and fuller view of the same topic might share 
that favor. 

In a country where general and uniform devel- 
opment of the body is even yet almost unknown, 
where the want of that development is keenly felt 
in every branch of active life, and where the in- 
terest in athletic contests, much as it is talked 
about, is still limited to a very small portion of 
the community, there is wide room for any sensi- 



6 PREFACE. 

ble system of simple yet vigorous daily exercise 
which, while quite free from the risks such con- 
tests entail, shall still be within the reach of all. 

The aim here has been, not to write a profound 
treatise on gymnastics, and point out how to event- 
ually reach great performance in this art, but 
rather, in a way so plain and untechnical that even 
any intelligent boy or girl can readily understand 
it, to first give the reader a nudge to take better 
care of his body, and so of his health, and then 
to point out one way to do it. That there are a 
hundred other ways is cheerfully conceded. If 
anything said here should stir up some to vigor- 
ously take hold of, and faithfully follow up, either 
the plan here indicated or any one of these others, 
it cannot fail to bring them marked benefit, and 

so to gratify 

The Author. 

New York, April, 1879. 



CONTENTS. 



OIIAP. PAGB 

I. DO WE INHERIT SHAPELY BODIES ? 9 

II. Hale-built Boys 23 

III. Will daily Physical Exercise for Girls pay? 42 

IV. IS IT TOO LATE FOR WOMEN TO BEGIN? 57 

V. Why Men should Exercise daily 74 

VI. Home Gymnasiums 91 

VIL The School the true Place for Children's 

Physical Culture 104 

VIII. What a Gymnasium might be and do 117 

IX. Some Results of brief systematic Exercise 138 

X. Work for the Fleshy, the Thin, the Old 154 

XI. Half- trained Eiremen and Police 177 

XII. Special Exercise for any given Muscles 199 

a. To Develop the Leg below the Knee 200 

b. Work for the Eront of the Thigh 208 

c. To Enlarge the Under Thigh 214 

d. To Strengthen the Sides of the Waist 215 

6. The Abdominal Muscles 218 

/. Counterwork for the Abdominal Muscles 224 

g. To enlarge and give Power to the Loins, , 227 

h. Development above the Waist , , 228 

i. Eilling out the Shoulders and Upper Back 230 



8 CONTENTS. 

CHAP. PAGE 

XII. Special Exercise, etc. — Continued. 

j. To obtain a good Biceps 233 

k. To bring up the Muscles on the Front and Side 

of the Shoulder 236 

I Forearm Work 237 

m. Exercises for the Triceps Muscles 238 

n. To Strengthen and Develop the Hand 241 

o. To Enlarge and Strengthen the Front of the 

Chest 243 

p. To Broaden and Deepen the Chest itself 245 

XIII. What Exercise to take daily 252 

a. Daily Work for Children 253 

b. Daily Exercise for Young Men 273 

c. Daily Exercise for Women 276 

d. Daily Exercise for Business Men 278 

e. Daily Exercise for Consumptives 283 

Appendix 1 291 

II 291 

III 292 

IV 292 

V 293 

VI 294 

VII 295 

Conclusion 295 



HOW TO GET STRONG, 



AND 



HOW TO STAY SO. 



CHAPTER I. 

DO WE INHERIT SHAPELY BODIES? 

Probably more men walk past the corner of 
Broadway and Fulton Street, in New York city, 
in the course of one year, than any other point 
in America — men of all nations and ages, heights 
and weights. Look at them carefully as they pass, 
and you will see that scarcely one in ten is either 
erect or thoroughly well-built. Some slouch their 
shoulders and double in at the waist ; some over- 
step; others cant to one side; this one has one 
shoulder higher than the other, and that one both 
too high ; some have heavy bodies and light legs, 
others the reverse; and so on, each with his own 
peculiarities. A thoroughly erect, well-proportion- 
ed man, easy and graceful in his movements, is 



10 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

far from a frequent sight. Any one accustomed to 
athletic work, and knowing what it can do for the 
body, must at times have wondered why most men 
allowed themselves to go along for years, perhaps 
through life, so carrying themselves as not only to 
lack the outward grace and ease they might pos- 
sess, and which they occasionally see in others, but 
so as to directly cramp and impede one or more 
of the vital organs. 

Nor is it always the man's fault that he is ill- 
proportioned. In most cases it comes down from 
his progenitors. The father's walk and physical 
peculiarities appear in the son, often so plainly 
that the former's calling might almost be told from 
a look at the latter. 

A very great majority of Americans are the sons 
either of farmers or merchants, mechanics or la- 
borers. The work of each class soon develops pe- 
culiar characteristics. No one of the four classes 
has ordinarily had any training at all aimed to 
make him equally strong all over. Broad as is the 
variety of the farmer's work, far the greater, and 
certainly the heavier, part of it tends to make him 
stoop forward and become inerect. No man stands 
up straight and mows. When he shovels, he bends 
more yet ; and every ounce of spade or load pulls 
him over, till, after much of this sort of work, it 
requires an effort to stand upright. Ploughing is 



DO WE INHERIT SHAPELY BODIES? 11 

better for the upper body, but it does not last long. 
While it keeps one walking over uneven ground, 
it soon brings on an awkward, clumsy step, rais- 
ing, as it does, the foot unnaturally high. Chop- 
ping is excellent for the upper man, but does little 
for his legs. In hand-raking and hoeing the man 
may remain erect ; but in pitching and building the 
load, in nearly every sort of lifting, and especially 
the heavier sorts, as in handling heavy stone or 
timber, his back is always bent over. It is so much 
easier to slouch over when sitting on horse-rake, 
mower, or harvester, that most persons do it. 

Scarcely any work on a farm makes one quick 
of foot. All the long day, while some of the mus- 
cles do the work, which tends to develop them, the 
rest are untaxed, and remain actually weak. A 
farmer is seldom a good walker, usually hitching 
up if he has an errand to go, though it be scarce 
a mile away; and he. is rarely a good runner. He 
is a hearty, well-fed man, not only because whole- 
some food is plenty, but because his appetite is 
sharp, and he eats with relish and zest. Naturally 
a man thinks that, when he eats and sleeps well, 
he is pretty healthy, and so he usually is ; but when 
he is contented with this condition of things, he 
overlooks the fact that he is developing some parts 
of his body, and leaving others weak ; that the warp 
he is encouraging in that bod} 7 , by twice as much 



12 HOW TO GET STKONG, ETC. 

work for the muscles of his back as for those of 
the front of his chest, while it enlarges the former,* 
often so as to even render it muscle-bound, actual- 
ly contracts the latter, and hence gives less room 
for heart, lungs, stomach, and all the vital organs, 
than a well-built man would have. If a man should 
tie up one arm, and with the other steadily swing 
a smith's hammer all day, there is little doubt that 
he would soon have an excellent appetite and the 
sweet sleep of the laboring man. But in what 
shape would it leave him in a few years, or even 
in a few months ? The work of the farmer, ill-dis- 
tributed as to the whole man, leaves him as really 
one-sided as the former. It is in a lesser degree, 
of course, but still so evident that he who looks 
even casually may see it. 

While the farmer's work makes a man hearty 
and well, though lumbering, it takes the spring 
out of him. The merchant is, physically, however, 
in a worse position. Getting to his work in boy- 
hood, sticking to it as long as the busiest man in 
the establishment, his body often utterly unfit and 
unready for even half the strain it bears, he strug- 
gles on through the boy's duties, the clerk's, and 
the salesman's, till he becomes a partner; or per- 
haps he starts as entry-clerk, rises to be book-keep- 
er, and then stays there. In many kinds of work 
he has been obliged to stand nearly all day, till 



DO WE INHERIT SHAPELY BODIES? 13 

his sides and waist could scarcely bear it longer, 
and he often breaks down under the ceaseless press- 
ure. If his work calls him out much, he finds 
that the constant walking, with his mind on the 
stretch, and more or less worried, does not bring 
him that vigor he naturally looks for from so much 
exercise, and at night he is jaded and used up, 
instead of being fresh and hearty. When excep- 
tional tension comes, and business losses or re- 
verses make him anxious and haggard, there is lit- 
tle in his daily work which tends to draw him out 
of a situation that he could have readily and easi- 
ly fitted himself to face, and weather too, had he 
only known how. To be sure, when he gets well 
on and better to do, he rides out in the late after- 
noon, and domestic and social recreation in the 
evening may tend to freshen him, and fit him for 
the next day's round; but, especially if he has been 
a strong young man, he finds that he is changed, 
and cannot work on as he used to do. His bodily 
strength and endurance are gone. The reason why 
is plain enough : when he was at his best, he was 
doing most work, and of the sort to keep him in 
good condition. Now there is nothing between 
rising and bedtime to build up any such strength, 
and he is fortunate if he retains even half of what 
he had. To be sure, he does not need the strength 
of a stalwart young farmer; but, could he have re- 



14 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

tained it, he would have been surprised, if he had 
taken sufficient daily exercise to regulate himself, 
how valuable it would have been in toning him up 
for the severer work and trial of the day. If, in- 
stead of the taxed and worn-out nerves, he could 
have had the feeling of the man of sturdy phy- 
sique, who keeps himself in condition, who does 
not know what it is to be nervous, what a priceless 
boon it would have been for him ! 

Who does not know among his friends business 
men whose faces show that they are nearly all the 
time overworked; who get thin, and stay so; who 
look tired, and are so ; who go on dragging along 
through their duties — for they are men made of the 
stuff which does the duty as it comes up, whether 
hard or easy ? The noon meal is rushed through, 
perhaps when the brain is at white-heat. More is 
eaten, both then and in the evening, than will di- 
gest; and good as is the after or the before din- 
ner ride, as far as it goes, it does not go far enough 
to make the digestion sure. Then comes broken 
sleep. The man waking from it is not rested, is 
not rebuilt and strong, and ready for the new 
day. 

With many men of this kind — and all city men 
know they are well-nigh innumerable— what won- 
der is it that nervous exhaustion is so frequent 
among them, and that physicians w r ho make this 



DO WE INHERIT SHAPELY BODIES? 15 

disorder a specialty often have all that they can 
do ? One of the most noted of them, Dr. S. Weir 
Mitchell, of Philadelphia, in his valuable little 
book, " Wear and Tear; or, Hints for the Over- 
worked," page 46, says : 

"All classes of men who use the brain severely, 
and who have also — and this is important — seasons 
of excessive anxiety or grave responsibility, are 
subject to the same form of disease; and this is 
why, I presume, that I, as well as others who are 
accustomed to encounter nervous disorders, have 
met with numerous instances of nervous exhaus- 
tion among merchants and manufacturers. 

" My note - books seem to show that manufact- 
urers and certain classes of railway officials are 
the most liable to suffer from neural exhaustion. 
Next to these come merchants in general, brokers, 
etc. ; then, less frequently, clergymen ; still less 
often, lawyers; and, more rarely, doctors; while 
distressing cases are apt to occur among the over- 
schooled young of both sexes." 

And while the more active among business men 
run into this sort of danger, those less exposed to it 
still do little or nothing to give themselves sound, 
vigorous bodies, so as to gain consequent energy 
and health, and so they go through life far less 
efficient and useful men than they might have 
been. Hence their sons have to suffer. The bov 



16 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

certainly cannot inherit from the father more vigor 
and stamina than the latter has, however favored 
the mother may have been ; so, unless the boy has 
some sort of training which builds him up, his 
father's weaknesses or physical defects are very 
likely to show in the son. 

Nor do most classes of mechanics fare much bet- 
ter. Take the heavier kinds of skilled labor. The 
blacksmith rarely uses one of his hands as much 
as the other, especially in heavy work, and often 
has poor legs. Indeed, if he has good legs, he does 
not get them from his calling. The stone-mason 
is equally one-handed — one hand merely guiding 
a light tool, the other swinging a heavy mallet. 
Nine -tenths of all machinists are right-handed. 
And so on, through the long list of the various 
trades where severe muscular exertion is requisite, 
there is a similar uneven distribution of the work 
to the various parts of the body, the right arm gen- 
erally getting the lion's share, the left but little, 
the back more than the chest — or, rather, than the 
front chest — and the legs having but passive sort 
of work at best. Puddlers and boiler - makers, 
plumbers and carpenters, coopers and smiths, ship- 
wrights, carriage-makers, tinners, and all who fol- 
low trades calling for vigorous muscular action, 
not only constantly work one side more than the 
other, but many of their tools are made, purposely, 



DO WE INHERIT SHAPELY BODIES? 17 

right-handed, so that they could hardly use them 
with the left hand if they wanted to. As to those 
whose work is more delicate, saddlers and shoe- 
makers, mill-hands and compositors, wood-turners, 
tailors, jewellers and engravers, and nearly all the 
lighter craftsmen, learn their trade with one hand, 
and would never venture to trust any of its liner 
work to the other. In short, take the mechanic 
where you will, in the vast majority of instances 
his right arm and side are larger and stronger 
than his left, and quite as often his vocation does 
little or nothing to strengthen and develop his 
legs. 

The fact that most of these men have active 
work for some of the muscles, with enough of it 
to insure a good appetite, combined with inherited 
vigor, makes them often hearty men, but it leaves 
them unequally developed. When they get into 
the gymnasium, they are usually lacking in that 
symmetry, ease, and erectness which they might 
all along have had, had they but used the means. 
The result, then, of overworking one part of the 
body at the expense of the other, especially in 
heavier mechanical labors, and of too little vigor- 
ous action in the lighter, tends to make the aver- 
age workman more prone to disease. Were there 
uniform development, and that daily vigorous ex- 
ercise which would stimulate the dormant parts of 

2 



18 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

the man's bodv, it would add to his life and use- 
fulness. 

But how is it with the sturdy laborer ? He can 
hardly be liable to the same defects. His work cer- 
tainly must call into play every muscle of his body. 

Well, watch him awhile and see. Try the coal- 
heaver. His surely is heavy, hard work, and must 
make him exert himself all over. But does it? 
While it keeps his knees steadily bent, his back is 
all the while over his work. The tons of coal he 
lifts daily with his shovel gradually, but with posi- 
tive certainty, insures his back remaining somewhat 
bent when his work for the time is done. When a 
year is spent at such labor, the back must take a 
lasting curve. While his back broadens, growing 
thick and powerful, his chest does not get so much 
to do; hence he is soon a round-shouldered man. 
As he does not hold his chest out, nor his neck and 
head erect, he contracts his lung-room, as well, in- 
deed, as his general vital-room. Scarce any man 
grows earlier muscle-bound, for few backs do so 
much hard work. Now, standing erect, let him 
try and slap the backs of his hands together be- 
hind his shoulders, keeping his arms horizontal and 
straight at the elbow. Now he will understand 
what is meant by being muscle-bound. It will be 
odd if he can get his hands within a foot of each 
other. 



DO WE INHERIT SHAPELY BODIES? 19 

The navvy is no better. The gardener's help- 
er has to do much stooping. So do track-hands, 
stono - breakers, truckmen, porters, longshoremen, 
and all the rest. Especially are ordinary day-la- 
borers, whose tools are spade, pick, and bar, who 
are careless about their skin, who are exposed to 
dust and dirt, who are coarsely shod, most prone to 
have bad feet. They, too, have the hearty appetite 
and the sound sleep. Seldom do they give their 
bodily improvement a thought, and so often, like 
their own teeth, they decay before their time, and 
materially shorten their usefulness and their days. 

Here, then, we see that the vast majority of men 
in this country — three out of four at least — are 
born of fathers but partially developed, and uni- 
formly of inerect carriage. 

And how is it with their mothers ? Naturally 
they come, to a large extent, from the same classes. 
They inherit many of the characteristics of their 
fathers — size, color, temperament, and so on, and 
generally the same tendency to be stronger on one 
side than on the other. In the poorer classes their 
life is one of work, frequently of overwork and t 
drudgery, and in ill -lighted, ill -ventilated apart- 
ments. Among those better off, they do not work 
enough, and often, though of vigorous parents, are 
not themselves strong. 

Thoroughly healthy, hearty women are not com- 



20 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

raon among us. Ask the family physician, and he 
will endorse this statement to an extent most men 
would not have supposed. American women are 
not good walkers. Look how they are astonished 
when they hear of some lady who walks from five 
to ten miles a day, and thinks nothing of it. One 
such effort would be positively dangerous to very 
many, indeed probably to the majority of our wom- 
en, while nearly all of them would not get over its 
effects for several days. Yet many English and 
Canadian ladies take that much exercise daily from 
choice, and, finding the exhilaration, strength, and 
health it brings, and the general feeling of efficien- 
cy which it produces, would not give it up. No 
regular exercise is common among the great ma- 
jority of the women of this country which makes 
them use both their hands alike, and is yet vigorous 
enough to add to the size and strength of their 
shoulders, chests, and arms. Ordinary house- work 
brings the hands of those who indulge in it a good 
deal to do, even though the washing and ironing 
are left to hired help. The care of children adds 
materially to the exertion called for in a daj\ But 
far too often both the house-work and the looking 
after the children are sources of great exertion. 
Were the woman strong and full of vigor, she 
would turn each off lightly, and still be fresh 
and hearty at the end of the day. 



DO WE INHERIT SHAPELY BODIES? 21 

With the father, as with the mother, the conclu- 
sion arrived at seems to be as follows : now that the 
day '3 work is done, no matter whether it brings 
with it strength or weakness, let us be perfectly 
contented with things as they are. If it makes us 
one-handed, so be it. If it stoops the back over, 
so be it. If it does little or nothing for the lower 
limbs, or cramps the chest, or never half fills the 
lungs, or aids digestion not a whit, so be it. If 
it keeps some persons thin and tired-looking, and 
does not prevent others from growing too fleshy, it 
never occurs to most of them that a very small 
amount of knowledge and effort in the right di- 
rection would work wonders, and in a way which 
would be not only valuable but attractive. 

Most of us get, then, from our parents a one- 
sided and partial development, and are contented 
with it. Unless we ourselves take steps to better 
our condition, unless we single out the weak spots, 
prescribe the work and the amount of it, and 
then do that work, we shall not remedy the evil. 
More than this, if we do not cure these defects, 
we will not only go through life with limited 
and cramped physical resources^ with their ac- 
companying disorders and ailments, but we will 
cruelly entail on our children defects and tenden- 
cies which might have readily been spared them, 
and for which they can fairly blame us. A little 



22 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

attention to the subject will show that the remedy 
is quite within our reach; and so plain is this, that 
a generation later, if the interest now awakening 
in this direction becomes, as it promises to, very 
general among ns, our descendants will understand 
far better than we do that the body can be edu- 
cated, as well as the mind or the moral nature ; 
that, instead of interfering with the workings of 
these, the body will, when properly trained, direct- 
ly and materially aid them; and, further, that 
there is no stand-point from which the matter can 
be viewed which will not show that such training 
will pay, and most handsomely at that. 



HALF-BUILT BOYS. 23 



CHAPTER II. 

HALF-BUILT BOYS. 

But, whatever our inherited lacks and strong 
points, few who have looked into the matter can 
have failed to notice that the popular sports and 
pastimes, both of our boyhood and youth, good as 
they are, as far as they go, are not in themselves 
vigorous enough, or well enough chosen to remedy 
the lack. The top, the marble, and the jack-knife 
of the boy are wielded with one hand, and for all 
the strength that wielding brings, it might as well 
have been confined to one. Flying kites is not 
likely to overdo the muscles. Yet top-time, mar- 
ble-time, and kite -time generally cover all the 
available play hours of each day for a large por- 
tion of the year. 

But he has more vigorous work than these bring. 
Well, what ? Why, ball-playing and playing tag, 
and foot-ball, and skating, and coasting, and some 
croquet, and occasional archery, while he is a pain- 
fully accurate shot with a bean-shooter. 

Well, in ball-playing he learns to pitch, to catch, 



24 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



to bat, to field, and to run bases. How many boys 
can pitch with either hand? Not one in a hun- 
dred, at least well enough to be of any use in a 
game. Observe the pitching arm and shoulder of 
some famous pitcher, and see how much larger 
they are than their mates. Dr. Sargent, for many 
years instructor in physical culture in Yale Col- 
lege, says that he has seen a well-known pitcher 
whose right shoulder was some two inches larger 
than the left; indeed, his whole right side seemed 
out of proportion with his left. The catcher draws 
both hands in toward him as the ball enters them, 
and passes it back to the pitcher almost always 
with' the same hand. He has, in addition, to spring 
about on his feet, unless the balls come very uni- 
formly, and to do much twisting and turning. 
The batter bats, not from either shoulder, but from 
one shoulder, to such an extent that those used to 
his batting know pretty well where he will knock 
the ball, though, did he bat from the other shoul- 
der, the general direction of the knocking would 
be quite different. Some of the fielders have con- 
siderable running and some catching to do, and 
then to throw the ball in to pitcher, or baseman, 
or catcher. But that throw is always with the 
stronger hand, never with the other. Many of the 
fielders often have not one solitary thing to do 
but to walk to their stations, remain there while 



HALF-BUILT BOYS. 25 

their side is out, and then walk back again, hardly 
getting work enough, in a cold day, to keep them 
warm. Running bases is sharp, jerky work, and 
a wretched substitute for steady, sensible running 
over a long distance. Nor is the fielder's running 
much better; and neither would ever teach a boy 
what he ought to know about distributing his 
strength in running, and how to get out of it what 
he readily might, and, more important yet, how to 
make himself an enduring long-distance runner. 
For all the work the former brings, ordinary, and 
even less than ordinary, strength of leg and lung 
will suffice, but for the latter it needs both good 
legs and good lnngs. 

Run most American boys of twelve or fourteen 
six or eight miles, or, rather, start them at it — let 
them all belong to the ball-nine if you will, too — 
and how many w r ould cover half the distance, even 
at any pace worth calling a run ? The English 
'are, and have long been, ahead of us in this direc- 
tion. To most readers the above distance seems 
far too long to let any boy of that age run. But, 
had he been always used to running — not fast, 
but steady running — it would not seem so. Tom 
Brown of Rugby, in the hares-and-hounds game, of 
which he gives us so graphic an account, makes 
both the hares and hounds cover a distance of 
nine miles without being much the worse for it, 



26 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC 



and yet they were simply school-boys, of all ages 
from twelve to eighteen. 

Let him who thinks that the average American 
boy of the same age would have fared as well, 
go down to the public bath-house, and look care- 
fully at a hundred or two of them as they tumble 
about in the water. He will see more big heads 
and slim necks, more poor legs and skinny arms, 
and lanky, half-built bodies than he would have 
ever imagined the whole neighborhood could pro- 
duce. Or he need not see them stripped. One of 
our leading metropolitan journals, in an editorial 
recently, headed, "Give the boy a chance," said : 

" About one in ten of all the boys in the Union 
are living in New York and the large cities imme- 
diately adjacent; and there are even more within 
the limits of Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and 
the other American cities whose population ex- 
ceeds a hundred thousand. The wits of these 
millions of boys are being forced to their extreme 
capacity, whether they are taught in the school, 
the shop, or the street. But what is being done 
for their bodies ? The answer may be obtained by 
standing at the door of almost any public or pri- 
vate school or academy at the hour of dismissal. 
The inquirer will see a crowd of undersized, list- 
less, thin-faced children, with scarcely any prom- 
ise of manhood about themP 



HALF-BUILT BOYS. 27 

Take a tape-measure and get the girth of chest, 
upper and forearm, of waist, hips, thighs, and calves 
01 these little fellows, likewise their heights and 
ages. Now send to England and get the statistics 
of the boys of the same age who are good at hares- 
and -hounds, at foot -ball, and see the difference. 
In every solitary measurement, save height, there 
is little doubt which would show the better figures. 
Even in height, it is more than probable that the 
article just quoted would find abundant founda- 
tion for calling our boys " undersized." 

Next cross to Germany, and go to the schools 
where boys and their masters together, in vacation 
days, sometimes walk two or even three hundred 
miles, in that land where the far-famed German 
Turners, by long training, show a strength and agil- 
ity combined which are astounding, and try the 
tape-measure there. Is there any question what 
the result would be ? When the sweeping work the 
Germans made of it in their late war with France 
is called to mind, does it not look as if there was 
good ground for the assumption so freely made, 
that it was the superior physique of the Germans 
which did the business ? 

Where work is chosen that only sturdy limbs 
can do, and that work is gradually approached, 
and persistently stuck to, by -and -by the sturdy 
limbs come. But when all that these limbs are 



28 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

called on to do is light, spasmodic work, and there 
is none of the spur which youthful emulation and 
pride in superior strength bring, what wonder is it 
if the result is a weakly article ? 

Another and natural consequence many parents 
must have noticed. Often, in a city neighborhood, 
there is not one strong, efficient boy to lead on the 
rest, and show them the development which they 
might have and should have. Boys, like men, are 
fond of doing whatever they can do well, and of 
letting others see them do it, and, like their elders, 
they gladly follow a capable and self-reliant lead- 
er. But if no one of their number is equal to 
tasks which call for first-class strength and stay- 
ing powers, when no one will lead the rest up to a 
higher physical plane, they never will get there. 

It is not a good sign, or one that bodes well for 
our future, to see the play-grounds of our cities 
and towns so much neglected. You. may stand on 
man)' of them for weeks together and not see one 
sharp, hot game of ball, or of anything else, where 
each contestant goes in with might and main, and 
the spectator becomes so interested as to hate to 
leave the fun. Foot -ball is a game as yet not 
at all general among us. Excellent is it for de- 
veloping intrepidity and other manly qualities. 
The Duke of Wellington is reported to have said 
that her foot-ball fields were where England's sol- 



HALF-BUILT BOYS. 29 

diers were made. The short, hasty school recess 
in the crowded school-yard, or play snatched in the 
streets — these will never make robust and vigor- 
ous men. Yet these are too often all that our boys 
get, their cramped facilities for amusement soon 
bringing their natural result in small vital organs 
and half-developed limbs. 

Many of our large cities are wretchedly off for 
play-grounds. Such open spaces as we have are 
fenced around, and have signs nailed all over 
them saying, " Keep off the grass !" at the same 
time forbidding games on the paths. One part 
of Boston Common used to be a famous play- 
ground ; and many hard-fought battles has it seen 
at foot-ball, base-ball, hockey, and cricket. Many 
an active school-boy there has more than once 
temporarily bit the dust. But now rows of street 
lamps run through that part of the Common, and 
the precious grass must be protected at all haz- 
ards. New York city is scarcely better off. Cen- 
tral Park, miles away from the great majority 
of the boys in the city, is elegant enough when 
they get to it; but let them once set their bounds 
and start a game of ball, or hares-and-hounds, or 
try a little jumping or running, on any one of those 
hundreds of beautiful acres, save in one solitary 
field, and see how soon the gray-coats will be upon 
them. The Battery, City Hall Park, Washington 



30 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

Square, Union Park, Stuyvesant Square, and Mad- 
ison Square are well located, and would make cap- 
ital play -grounds, but the grass there is altogether 
too well combed to be ruffled by unruly boys. If 
a boy's cousin comes in from the country, and he 
wishes to trv conclusions with him, he must con- 
fine his efforts to the flagged sidewalk or the cob- 
ble-stoned street, while a brass-buttoned referee is 
likely at any moment to interfere, and take them 
both into custody for disorderly conduct. 

Again, outside of a boy's ball -playing, scarce 
one of his other pastimes does much to build him 
up. Swimming is excellent, but is confined to a 
very few months in the year, and is seldom gone at, 
as it should be, with any regularity, or with a com- 
petent teacher to gradually lead the boy on to its 
higher possibilities. Skating is equally desultory, 
because in many of our cities winters pass with 
scarcely a week of good ice. Coasting brings 
some up-hill walking, good for the legs, but does 
practically nothing for the arms. 

So boyhood slips along until the lad is well on 
in his teens, and still, in nine cases out of ten, he 
has had nothing yet of any account in the way of 
that systematic, vigorous, daily exercise which looks 
directly to his weak points, and aims not only to 
eradicate them, but to build up his general health 
and strength as well. He gets no help in the one 



HALF-BUILT BOYS. 31 

place of all where he might so easily get it — the 
school. So far as we can learn, no system of ex- 
ercise has been introduced into any school or col- 
lege in this land, unless it is at the military acade- 
my at West Point, which begins to do for each pu- 
pil, not alone what might easily be done, but what 
actually ought to be done. It will probably not be 
many years before all of us will wonder why the 
proper steps in this direction have been put off so 
long. Calisthenics are here and there resorted to. 
In some schools a rubber strap has been introduced, 
the pupil taking one end of it in each hand, and 
working it in a few different directions, but in a 
mild sort of way. At Amherst College enough 
has been accomplished to tell favorably on the 
present health of the student, but not nearly 
enough to make him strong and vigorous all over, 
so as to build him up against ill health in the fut- 
ure. At another college certain exercises, excel- 
lent in their way, admirable for suppling the joints 
and improving the carriage, have for some time 
been practised. But this physical work does not 
go nearly far enough, nor is it aimed sufficiently 
at each pupil's peculiar weak spot. It also neither 
reaches all the students, nor is it practised but a 
small part of the year. In the great majority of 
our schools and colleges, little or no idea is given 
the pupil as to the good results he will derive from 



32 HOW TO GET STBONG, ETC 



exercise. The teacher's own experience in physi- 
cal development is often more limited than that of 
some of his scholars. 

The evil does not end here. Take the son of 
the man of means and refinement, a boy who is 
having given him as liberal an education as money 
can buy and his parents' best judgment can select, 
one who spends a third or more of his life in fit- 
ting himself to get on successfully in the remain- 
der* of it. That boy certainly ought to come out 
ready for his life's work, with not only a thorough- 
ly-trained mind and a strong moral nature, but 
with a well -developed, vigorous physique, and a 
knowledge of how to maintain it, so that he may 
make the most of all his advantages. 

But how often does this happen ? Stand by the 
gate as the senior class of almost any college in this 
country files out from its last examination before 
graduation, and look the men carefully over. Ask 
your physician to join you in the scrutiny. If, be- 
tween you two, you can arrive at the conclusion 
that one-half, or even one-third of them, have that 
vitality and stamina which make it probable that 
they will live till seventy, it will be indeed most 
surprising. A few of these young men, the ath- 
letes, will be well-developed, better really than they 
need be. But this over-development may be far 
from the safest or wisest course. Even though 



HALF-BUILT BOYS. 33 

physically improved by it, it is not certain that 
this marked development will carry them onward 
through life to a ripe old age. But, with others 
indifferently developed, there will be many more 
positively weak. Such men may have bright, un- 
common heads. Yes ; but a bright and uncom- 
mon head on a broken down, or nearly broken 
down, body is not going to make half as effective 
a man in the life-race as a little duller head and 
a good deal better body. 

But have these graduates had a competent in- 
structor at college to look after them in this re- 
spect ? Will some one name a college where they 
have such an instructor? or a school where, in- 
stead of building the pupil up for the future, 
more has been done than to insure his present 
health? One or two such there may be, but 
scarcely more than one or two. 

Take even the student who has devoted the most 
time to severe muscular exercise — the rowing-man, 
not the beginner, but the veteran of a score or more 
of races, who has been rowing all his four college 
years as regularly and almost as often as he dined. 
Certainly it will not be claimed that his is not a 
well-developed body, or that his permanent health 
is not insured. Let us look a little at him and 
see. What has he done ? He entered college at 
eighteen, and is the son, say, of a journalist or of a 

3 



34 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

professional man. Finding, when he came to be 
fourteen or fifteen, that he was not strong, that 
somehow he did not fill out his clothes, he put in 
daily an hour or more at the gymnasium, walked 
much at intervals, took sparring lessons, did some 
rowing, and perhaps, by the time he entered col- 
lege, got his upper arm to be a foot or even thir- 
teen inches in circumference, with considerable 
muscle on his chest. Now this young man hears 
daily, almost hourly, of the wonderful Freshman 
crew — an embryotic affair as yet, to be sure, but 
of exalted expectations — and into that crew he 
must go at all hazards. He is tried and accepted. 
Now, for four years, if a faithful oar, he w T ill row 
all of a thousand miles a year. As each year 
has, off and on, not over two hundred rowing-days 
in all, he will generally, for the greater part of the 
remaining time, pull nearly an equivalent daily at 
the rowing-weights. He will find a lot of eager 
fellows at his side, working their utmost to outdo 
him, and get that place in the boat w T hich he so 
earnestly covets, and which he is not yet quite 
sure that he can hold. Some of his muscles are 
developing fast. His recitations are, perhaps, suf- 
fering a little, but never mind that just now, when 
he thinks that there is more important work on 
hand. The young fellow's appetite is ravenous. 
He never felt so hearty in his life, and is often 



HALF-BUILT BOYS. 35 

told how well he is looking. He attracts attention 
because likely to be a representative man. He 
never filled out his clothes as he does now. His 
legs are improving noticeably. They ought to do 
so, for it is not one or two miles, but three or four, 
which he runs on almost every one of those days 
in the hundred in which he is not rowing. 

Our young athlete has not always gone into the 
work from mere choice. For instance, one of a 
recent Harvard Freshman crew told the writer that 
he had broken down his eyes from over-use of 
them, and, looking about for some vigorous physi- 
cal exercise which w T ould tone him up quickly and 
restore his eyesight, and having no one to consult, 
he had taken to rowing. 

The years roll by till the whole four are over, 
and our student is about to graduate. He looks 
back to see what he has accomplished. In physi- 
cal matters he finds that, while he is a skilful, and 
perhaps a decidedly successful, oar, and that some 
of his measurements have much improved since the 
day he was first measured, others somehow have 
not come up nearly as fast, in fact, have held back 
in the most surprising way. His chest-girth may 
be three or even four inches larger for the four 
years' work. Some, if not much, of that is certain- 
ly the result of growth, not development, and, save 
what running did, the rest is rather an increase of 



36 



HOW TO GET STKONG, ETC. 




Fig. 1. 

the back muscles than of front and back alike. 
Strong as his back is — for many a hard test has it 
stood in the long, hot home-minutes of more than 
one well-fought race — still he has not yet a tlior- 



HALF-BUILT BOYS. 



37 




Fig. 2. 



oughly developed and capacious chest. Doubtless 
his legs have improved, if he has done any run- 
ning. (In some colleges the rowing-men scarcely 
run at all.) His calves have come to be well- 



38 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

developed and shapely, and so too have his thighs, 
while his loins are noticeably strong-looking and 
well muscled up, and so indeed is his whole back. 
But if he has done practically no other arm-work 
than that which rowing and the preparation for it 
called for, his arms are not so large, especially 
above the elbow, as they ought to be for a man 
with such legs and such a back. The front of 
his chest is not nearly so well developed as his 
back, perhaps is hardly developed at all, and he 
is very likely to carry himself inerectly, with head 
and neck canted somewhat forward, while there 
is a lack of fulness, often a noticeable hollowness, 
of the upper chest, till the shoulders are plainly 
warped and rounded forward. 

With professional oarsmen, who for years have 
rowed far more than they have done anything else, 
and who have no especial care for their looks, or 
spur to develop harmoniously, the defects rowing 
leaves stand out most glaringly. Notice in the cuts 
on pp. 36, 37 (Figs. 1 and 2) the flat and slab-sided, 
almost hollow, look about the upper chest and front 
shoulder, and compare these with the full and well- 
rounded make of the figure whose body is sketched 
on the cover. It will not take long to determine 
which has the better front chest, or which is likely 
to so carry that chest as to w r ard off tendencies to 
throat and lung troubles. Yet Fig. 1 is from a 



HALF-BUILT BOYS. 39 

photograph of one of the most distinguished stu- 
dent-oarsmen America ever produced, while Fig. 2 
represents one of the swiftest and most skilful pro- 
fessional scullers of the country to-day.* Better 
proof could not be presented of the effect of a 
great amount of rowing, and of the very limited 
exercise it brings to those muscles which are not 
especially called on. 

After the student's rowing is over, and his col- 
lege days are past, and he settles down to work 
with not nearly so much play in it, how does he 
find that his rowing pays ? Has it made him fitter 
than his fellows, who went into athletics with no 
such zeal and devotion, to stand life's wear and 
tear, especially when that life is to be spent main- 
ly indoors? When, in later years, with new asso- 
ciations, business cares, and long, hard head-work, 
accompanied, as the latter usually is, by only par- 
tial inflation of the lungs, when all these get him 
out of the w^ay of using his large back muscles, 
he will find their very size, and the long spell of 
warping forward which so much rowing gave the 
shoulders, tends more to weigh him forward than 
if he had never so developed them. Instead of 
benefiting his throat and lungs, this abnormal de- 
velopment actually inclines to cramp them. 

* The faces of. both men have, of course, been disguised. 



40 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

Here, then, is the case of a man who voluntarily 
gave much time, thought, and labor to the severest 
test of his strength, and who had hoped to bring 
about staying powers, and he comes out of it all, to 
begin his real race in life, often no better fitted, 
perhaps not nearly so well fitted, for it as some of 
his comrades who did not spare half so much time 
to athletics. The other men, who did not work 
nearly as much as he did, still managed to hit 
upon a sort which, instead of cramping their 
chests, expanded them, enlarging the lung- room, 
and so gave the heart, stomach, and other vital 
organs all the freest play. 

If the ordinary play and exercise of the boy do 
not build and round him into a sound, well-made, 
and evenly-balanced man ; if the hardest work he 
has hit on, when left to himself to find out, mostly 
to be paid for by a considerable amount of money ; 
if these only leave him a half -developed man, 
can it not be seen at once that an improvement is 
wanted in his physical education ? 

Are we not behindhand, and far behindhand, 
then, in a matter of serious importance to the well- 
being of the people of our country ? Do we not 
want some system of education which shall rear 
men, not morally and intellectually good alone, but 
good physically as well ? which sh^ll qualify them 
both to seize and to nqake the nqost of the ad van- 



HALF-BUILT BOYS. 41 

tages which years of toil and struggle bring, but 
which advantages among us now are too frequent- 
ly thrown away. Men too often, just as they are 
about clutching these benefits, find, Tantalus-like, 
that they are eluding their grasp. The reason 
must be plain to all. It is because that grasp is 
weakening, and falls powerless at the very time 
when it could be and should be surest, and potent 
for the most good. 



42 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



CHAPTER III. 

WILL DAILY PHYSICAL EXERCISE FOR GIRLS PAY? 

Observe the girls in any of our cities or towns, 
as they pass to or from school, and see how few 
of them are at once blooming, shapely, and strong. 
Some are one or the other, but very few are all 
combined, while a decided majority are neither one 
of them. Instead of high chests, plump arms, 
comely figures, and a graceful and handsome mien, 
you constantly see flat chests, angular shoulders, 
often round and warped forward, with scrawny 
necks, pipe-stem arms, narrow backs, and a weak 
walk. Not one girl in a dozen is thoroughly erect, 
whether walking, standing, or sitting. Nearly ev- 
ery head is pitched somewhat forward. The arms 
are frequently held almost motionless, and there 
is a general lack of spring and elasticity in their 
movements. Fresh, blooming complexions are so 
rare as to attract attention. Among eyes, plenty 
of them pretty, sparkling, or intelligent, but few 
have vigor and force. If any dozen girls, taken 
at random, should place their hands side by side 



WILL DAILY EXERCISE FOR GIRLS PAY? 43 

on a table, many, if not most, of these hands would 
be found to lack beauty and symmetry, the fin- 
gers, and indeed the whole hand, too often having 
a weak, undeveloped, nerveless look. 

Now watch these girls at play. See how few of 
their games bring them really vigorous exercise. 
Set them to running, and hardly one in the party 
has the swift, graceful, gliding motion she might so 
readily acquire. Not one can run any respectable 
distance at a good pace. There is abundant vivac- 
ity and spirit, abundant willingness to play with 
great freedom, but very little such play as there 
might be, and which would pay so well. Most of 
their exercise worth calling vigorous is for their 
feet alone, the hands seldom having much to do. 
The girls of the most favored classes are generally 
the poorest players. The quality and color of their 
clothing necessitates their avoiding all active,hearty 
play, while it is the constant effort of nurse or gov- 
erness to repress that superabundance of spirits 
which ought to belong to every boy and girl. 
Holding one's elbows close to the body while walk- 
ing, and keeping the hands nearly or quite motion- 
less, may accord with the requirements of fashion- 
able life, but it's terribly bad for the arms, keeping 
them poor, indifferent specimens, when they might 
be models of grace and beauty. 

As the girl comes home from school, not with 



44 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

one book only, but often six or eight, instead of 
looking light and strong and free, she is too often 
what she really appears to be, pale and weak. So 
many books suggest a large amount of work for 
one day, certainly for one evening, and the im- 
pression received is that she is overworked, while 
the truth frequently is that the advance to be 
made in each book is but trifling, and the aggre- 
gate, not at all large, by no means too great for 
the same girl were she strong and hearty. It is 
not the mental work which is breaking her down, 
but there is no adequate physical exercise to build 
her up. See what ex-Surgeon-General Hammond 
says, in his work on " Sleep," as to the ability to 
endure protracted brain-work without ill result: 

" It is not the mere quantity of brain-work which 
is the chief factor in the production of disease. 
The emotional conditions under which work is per- 
formed is a far more important matter. A man of 
trained mental habits can bear with safety an al- 
most incredible amount of brain-toil, provided he 
is permitted to work without distraction or excite- 
ment, in the absence of disquieting cares and anxi- 
eties. It is not brain-work, in fact, that kills, but 
brain-worry." 

The girl, of course, has not the strength for the 
protracted effort of the matured man, nor is such 
effort often required of her. Her studying is done 



WILL DAILY EXERCISE FOR GIRLS PAY? 45 

quietly at home, undisturbed, usually, by any such 
cares and responsibilities as the man encounters. 
Hers is generally brain -work, not brain -worry. 
Yet the few hours a day exhaust her, because her 
vital system, which supports her brain, is feeble and 
inefficient. No girl is at school over six hours out 
of the twenty-four, and, deducting the time taken 
for recitation, recess, and the various other things 
which are not study, five hours, or even less, will 
cover the time she gives to actual brain-work in 
school, with two, or perhaps three, hours daily out 
of school. With the other sixteen hours practical- 
ly her own, there is ample time for all the vigorous 
physical exercise she needs or could take, and yet 
allow ten, or even twelve, of those hours for sleep 
or eating. But notice, in any of these off-hours, 
what exercise these girls take. They walk to and 
fro from school, they play a few minutes at recess, 
they may take an occasional irregular stroll besides, 
and may indulge in a game of croquet, but all the 
time intent on their conversation, never thinking of 
the exercise itself, and the benefit it brings. Such 
things fill up the measure of the daily physical ex- 
ercise of thousands of our American girls. It is 
the same thing for nearly all, save those from the 
poorest classes. 

And what is the result ? Exactly what such ex- 
ercise — or, rather, such lack of it — would bring. 



46 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

The short abrupt run, the walk to or from school, 
the afternoon stroll, or the miscellaneous standing 
about — none of these call for or beget strength of 
limb, depth of chest, or vitality. None of these 
exercises is more than almost any flat-chested, half- 
developed girl could readily accomplish without 
serious effort, and, going through them for years, 
she would need little more strength than she had 
at first. 

But all this time her mental work comes in no 
meagre allowance. It is all the time pushing for- 
ward. Subjects are set before her, to grasp and 
master which requires every day hours of close ap- 
plication for months together. The number of 
them is also enlarging, and the task is constantly 
becoming more severe. A variety of influences 
spurs her steadily onward. Maybe it is emula- 
tion and determination which urges her on, not 
only to do well, but to excel. Maybe it is to grat- 
ify the teacher's pride, and a desire to show the 
good fruit of her work. Perhaps of tener than any- 
thing else the girl is in dread of being dropped 
into another class, and she resolves to remain with 
her present one at all hazards. 

But with all this there is an advance in the 
amount and difficulty of the brain-work. No dis- 
tinction is made between the delicate girl and the 
strong one. To those of a like age come like 



WILL DAILY EXERCISE FOR GIRLS PAY? 47 

tasks. The delicate girl, from her indifference to 
physical effort, finding that for the time her weak- 
ness of body does not interfere with a ready-work- 
ing brain, gradually inclines to draw even more 
away from livelier games and exercises, in which 
she does not excel, and to get more at her books. 
Can there be much doubt as to the result a few 
years later? Is it any wonder that the neglected 
body develops some partial weakness, or too often 
general debility ? Is it at all a rare thing, in the 
observation of any one, to notice that this weak- 
ness, this debility, are very apt to become chronic, 
and that the woman, later on in life, is a source of 
anxiety and a burden to her friends, when instead 
of this she might have been a valued helper ? 

Now, if the body, during the growing years, was 
called on to do nothing which should even half 
develop it, while the brain was pushed nearly to 
its utmost, does it take long to decide whether 
such a course was a wise one? Leaving out en- 
tirely the discomfort to the body, is that a sensible 
system of education which leaves a girl liable to 
become weak, if not entirely broken down, before 
she is well on in middle as;e? Is this not like 
giving great care to moral and mental education 
alone, and actually doing almost nothing for their 
physical nature? Is this not an irrational and 
one-sided course, and sure to beget a one-sided per- 



48 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

son? And yet is not that just what is going on 
to-day with a great majority of the young girls in 
our land ? 

The moment it is conceded that a delicate body 
can be made a robust one, that moment it is equal- 
ly plain that there can be an almost incalculable 
gain in the comfort and usefulness of the possessor 
of that body, not only during all the last half of 
her life, but through the first half as well. And 
yet, to persons familiar with what judicious, daily 
physical exercise has done, and can do, for a del- 
icate body, there is no more doubt but that this 
later strength, and even sturdiness, can be acquired 
than that the algebra or geometry, which at first 
seems impenetrable, can be gradually mastered. 
The rules which bring success in eacli are in many 
respects identical. Begin to give the muscles of 
the hand and forearm, for instance, as vigorous 
and assiduous use as these mathematical studies 
bring to the brain, and the physical grasp will as 
surely and steadily improve as does the mental. 
Give not only the delicate girls, but all girls, exer- 
cises which shall insure strong and shapely limbs, 
and chests deep, full, and high, beginning these ex- 
ercises mildly, and progressing very gradually, cor- 
recting this high shoulder, or that stoop, or this 
hollow chest, or that overstep, and carrying on this 
development as long as the school-days last. Let 



WILL DAILY EXERCISE FOR GIRLS PAY? 49 

this be done under a teacher as familiar with her 
work as the mathematical instructor is with his, 
and what incalculable benefit would accrue, not to 
tliis generation alone, but to their descendants as 
well ! 

But will not this physical training dull the mind 
for its work? If protracted several hours, or the 
greater part of each day, as with the German peas- 
ant-woman in the field, or the Scotch fish-woman 
with her wares, no doubt it would. But if Mae- 
laren of Oxford wanted but a little while each day 
to increase the girth of the chests of a dozen British 
soldiers three inches apiece in four months, is this 
very moderate allowance likely to work much men- 
tal dulness ? Did Charles Dickens's seven to twelve 
miles afoot daily interfere with some masterly work 
which his pen produced each day? Did Napole- 
on's whole days spent in the saddle tell very seri- 
ously on his mental operations, and prevent him 
from conceiving and carrying out military and 
strategic work which will compare favorably with 
any the world's history tells of ? 

And what if this daily exercise, beside the bod- 
ily benefit and improvement which ensues, should 
also bring actually better mental work? Unbend- 
ing the bow for a little while, taking the tension 
from the brain for a few minutes, and depleting it 
by expanding the chest to its fullest capacity, and 



50 how to gp:t strong, etc. 

increasing the circulation in the limbs — these, in- 
stead of impairing that brain, will repair it, and 
markedly improve its tone and vigor. 

There ought to be in every girls' school in our 
land, for pupils of every age, a system of physi- 
cal culture which should first eradicate special 
weaknesses and defects, and then create and main- 
tain the symmetry of the pupils, increasing their 
bodily vigor and strength up to maturity. If sev- 
eral, or a majority, of the girls in a class have flat 
or indifferent chests, put them in a squad which 
shall pay direct and steady attention to raising, ex- 
panding, and strengthening the chest. If many 
have a bad gait, some stepping too long, others too 
short, set them aside for daily special attention to 
their step. If many, or nearly all, have an inereet 
carriage, wholly lacking la ligne of Dumas, then 
daily insist on such exercises for them as shall 
straighten them up and keep them up. The dan- 
cing-master teaches the girl to step gracefully and 
accurately through various dancing-steps. To in- 
culcate a correct length of step, and method of put- 
ting the foot down and raising it in walking, is not 
nearly so difficult a task. If the "setting-up" 
drill of the West Pointer in a few weeks trans- 
forms the raw and ungainly country boy into a 
youth of erect and military bearing, and insisting 
on that bearing at all times throughout the first 



WILL DAILY EXERCISE FOR GIRLS PAY? 51 

year gives the cadet a set and carriage which 
lie often retains through life, is there anything 
to hinder the girl from acquiring an equally erect 
and handsome carriage of the body if she too 
will only use the means? If the muscles which, 
when fully developed, enable one to sit or stand 
erect for hours together are now weak, is it not 
wise to at once strengthen them ? 

But may not this vigorous muscular exercise, 
which tends to produce hard and knotted muscles 
in the man, take away the softer and more grace- 
ful lines, which are essentially feminine? If exer- 
cise be kept up for hours together, as in the case 
of the blacksmith, undoubtedly it would. But that 
is a thing a sensible system of exercise would avoid, 
as studiously as it would the weakness and ineffi- 
ciency which result from no work. A little trial 
soon tells what amount of work, and how much of 
it, is best adapted to each pupil ; then the daily 
maintaining of that proportion or kind of exercise, 
and its increase, as the newly-acquired strength 
justifies and invites it, is all that is required. With- 
out that hardness and solidity which are essentially 
masculine, there still comes a firmness and plump- 
ness of muscle to which the unused arm or back 
was a stranger. Instead of these being incompat- 
ible with beauty, they are directly accessory to it. 
"Elegance of form in the human figure," says 



52 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

Emerson, " marks some excellence of structure ;" 
and again, "any real increase of fitness to its 
end, in any fabric or organism, is an increase of 
beauty." 

Look at the famous beauties of any age, and ev- 
erything in the picture or statue points to this same 
firmness and symmetry of make, this freedom from 
either leanness or flabbiness. The Yenuses and 
Junos, the Minervas, Niobes, and Helens of my- 
thology, the Madonnas, the mediaeval beauties, all 
alike have the well-developed and shapely arm and 
shoulder, the high chest, the vigorous body, and 
the firm and erect carriage. Were there a thin 
chest or a flat shoulder, a poor and feeble arm or 
a contracted waist, it would at once mar the pict- 
ure, and bring down on it judgment anything but 
favorable. Put now on the canvas or in marble, 
not the strongest and most comely, neither the 
weakest and least-favored, of our American girls 
or women, but simply her who fairly represents 
the average, and, however well the face and ex- 
pression might suffice, the imperfect physical devel- 
opment, and indifferent figure and carriage, would 
at once justly provoke unfavorable comment. 

That the same vigorous exercise and training 
which brought forth womanly physical beauty in 
ancient days will bring it out now, there need be 
no manner of doubt. A most apt and excellent 



WILL DAILY EXERCISE FOR GIRLS PAY? 53 

case in point was mentioned in the New York 
Tribune of June 19tli, 1878. It said : 

"The study and practice of gymnastics are to 
be made compulsory in all the State schools in 
Italy. The apostle of physical culture in that en- 
ervating climate is Sebastian Fenzi, the son of a 
Florence banker. He built a gymnasium at his 
own expense in that city, and from that beginning 
the movement has extended from city to city. He 
has preached gymnastics to senators and deputies, 
to the syndic and municipal councillors, and even 
to the crown princess, now queen. He especially 
inculcates its advantages on all mothers of fami- 
lies ^ as likely to increase to a remarkable extent 
the 'personal charms of their daughters. And so 
far as his own domestic experience goes, his theo- 
ries have not been contradicted by practice, for he 
is the father of the most beautiful women in 
Italy:' 

Suppose Mr. Dnrant at Wellesley, or Mr. Cald- 
well at Yassar, should at once introduce in their 
deservedly famous schools a system of physical ed- 
ucation which should proceed on the simple but in- 
telligent plan, first of training the weaker muscles 
of each pupil until they are as strong as the rest, 
and then of transferring the young woman thus 
physically improved from the class of this or that 
special work, to that which insures to all muscles 



54 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

alike ample, daily vigorous exercise. Suppose that 
all the girls could be made to consider this daily 
lesson as much a matter of course in their studies 
as anything else. Suppose, again, that there is a 
teacher familiar with the work and all its require- 
ments, one who is capable of interesting others, 
one who fully enters into the spirit of it. If such 
a master or mistress can be found, if the pupils 
are instructed — whether they be sitting, standing, 
or walking — to always remain erect, is there any 
reason why the Vassar girls should not soon have as 
fine and impressive a carriage as the manly young 
fellows at the academy across the river, but a few 
miles distant ? 

Looking again at the effect on the mental work, 
would the daily half-hour of exercise in-doors, and 
the hour's constitutional out-doors, in all weathers, 
if sensibly arranged, interfere one whit with all 
the intellectual progress the girls could or should 
make ? For, is that a rational system of intellect- 
ual progress which brings out a bright intellect on 
a half-developed body, and promises fine things in 
the future, when the body has had no training ad- 
equate to justify the belief that there will be much 
of any future? Is not that rather a dear price to 
pay for such intellectuality ? Hear Herbert Spen- 
cer on this point ; 

" On women the effects of this forcing system 



WILL DAILY EXERCISE FOR GIRLS PAY? 55 

are, if possible, even more injurious than on men. 
Being in a great measure debarred from those vig- 
orous and enjoyable exercises of body by which 
boys mitigate the evils of excessive study, girls 
feel these evils in their full intensity. Hence the 
much smaller proportion of them who grow up 
well-made and healthy. In the pale, angular, flat- 
chested young ladies, so abundant in London draw- 
ing-rooms, we see the effect of merciless applica- 
tion unrelieved by youthful sports ; and this phys- 
ical degeneracy exhibited by them hinders their 
welfare far more than their many accomplishments 
aid it. Mammas anxious to make their daughters 
attractive could scarcely choose a course more fatal 
than this which sacrifices the body to the mind. 
Either they disregard the tastes of the opposite 
sex, or else their conception of those tastes is erro- 
neous. Men care comparatively little for erudi- 
tion in women, but very much for physical beau- 
ty and good nature and sound sense. How many 
conquests does the blue-stocking make through her 
extensive knowledge of history?" 

This is a question quite w T orthy of the consider- 
ation of every teacher of girls in our land, and a 
paragraph full of suggestion, not only to every par- 
ent having a child's interests in his or her keeping, 
but to every spirited girl herself as well. 

Every school -girl in America could be daily 



56 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

practised in a few simple exercises, calling for no 
costly, intricate, or dangerous apparatus, taking a 
little time, bnt yet expanding her lungs, invigo- 
rating her circulation, strengthening her digestion, 
giving every muscle and joint of her body vigorous 
play, and so keeping her toned up, and strong 
enough to be free from much danger either of in- 
curring serious disease, or any of the lighter ail- 
ments so common among us. As to her useful- 
ness, no matter where her lot is to be cast, it will 
be increased, and, it is not too much to add, her 
happiness would be greatly enhanced through all 
her life as well. 



IS IT TOO LATE FOR WOMEN TO BEGIN ? 57 



CHAPTER IV. 

IS IT TOO LATE FOR WOMEN TO BEGIN? 

But if the school-days are past and the girl has 
become a woman, what then? If the girl, tram- 
melled by few duties outside of school-hours, has 
found amusement for herself, yet still needs daily 
and regular exercise to make and keep her fresh 
and hearty, much more does the woman, especially 
in a country like our own, where physical exercise 
for her sex is almost unknown, require such exer- 
cise. Our women are born of parents who pride 
themselves on their mental qualifications, on a 
good degree of intelligence. Our educational sys- 
tem is one which offers an endless variety of spurs 
to continued mental effort. 

Are not the majority of our women to-day, es- 
pecially in town and city, physically weak ? The 
writers on nervous disorders speak of the astound- 
ing increase of such diseases among us, of late 
years, in both sexes, but especially among the 
women. General debility is heard of nowadays 
almost as often as General Grant. Most of our 



58 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

women think two miles, or even less, a long dis- 
tance to walk, even at a dawdling pace, while few 
of them have really strong chests, backs, or arms. 
(If they wish to test their arms, for instance, let 
them grasp a bar or the rung of a ladder, and try 
to pull themselves up once till the chin touches. 
Not two in fifty will do it, but almost any boy can.) 
Hardly a day goes by when a woman's strength is 
not considerably taxed, and often overtaxed. 

There is no calling of the unmarried woman 
where vigorous health and strength — not great or 
herculean, but simply such as every well-built and 
well-developed woman ought to have — would not 
be of great, almost priceless value to her. The 
shop-girl, the factory operative, the clerk in the 
store, the book-keeper, the seamstress, the milliner, 
the telegraph operator, are all confined, for many 
hours a day, with exercise for but a few of the 
muscles, and with the trunk held altogether too 
long in one position, and that too often a contract- 
ed and unhealthy one. Actually nothing is done 
to render the body lithe and supple, to develop the 
idle muscles, to deepen the breathing and quicken 
the circulation — in short, to tone up the whole sys- 
tem. No wonder such a day's work, and such a 
way of living, leaves the body tired and exhausted. 
It would, before long, do the same for the strong- 
est man. No wonder that the walk to and from 



IS IT TOO LATE FOR WOMEN TO BEGIN? 59 

work is a listless affair. No wonder that, later 
on, special or general weakness develops, and the 
woman goes through life either weak and deli- 
cate, or with not half the strength and vigor which 
might readily be hers. 

And is it any better with the married woman ? 
Take one of limited means. Much of the work 
about her home which servants might do, could 
she employ them, she bravely does herself, willing 
to make ten times this sacrifice, if need be, for 
those dearest to her. Follow her throughout the 
day, especially where there are children : there is 
an almost endless round of duties, many of them 
not laborious, to be sure, or calling for much 
muscular strength, but keeping the mind under a 
strain until they are done, difficult to encompass 
because difficult to foresee. In the aggregate they 
are almost numberless. A man can usually tell in 
the morning most of what is in front of him for 
the day — indeed, can often plan so as to say before- 
hand just what he w r ill be at each hour. But not 
so the housewife and mother of young children. 
She is constantly called to perform little duties, 
both expected and unexpected, which cannot fail 
to tell on a person not strong. A healthy child a 
year old will often weigh twenty pounds ; yet a 
woman otherwise weak w T ill carry that child on 
her left arm several times a day up one or more 



60 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

flights of stairs, till you would think she 'would 
drop from exhaustion. Let sickness come, and she 
will often seem almost tireless, so devotedly will 
she keep the child in her arms. While children 
are, of course, carried less when they begin to walk, 
many a child two, or even three years old, is pick- 
ed up by the mother, not a few times a day, even 
though he weighs thirty or forty pounds instead 
of twenty. Now for this mother to have handled 
a dumb-bell of that weight would have been 
thought foolish and dangerous, for nothing about 
her suggested strength equal to that performance. 
And yet the devotion of a weak mother to her 
child is quite as great as that of a strong one. Is 
it any wonder that this overdoing of muscles nev^ 
er trained to such work must sooner or later tell? 
It would be wonderful if it did not. 

Yet now, suppose that same mother had from 
early childhood been trained to systematic physi- 
cal exercise suited to ner strength, and increasing 
with that strength until, from a strong and healthy 
child, she grew to be a hearty, vigorous woman, 
well developed, strong, and comely — what now 
would she mind carrying the little tot on her 
arm ? What before soon became heavy and a bur- 
den — a willing burden though it was — now never 
seems so at all, and really is no task for such mus- 
cles as she now has. Instead of her day's work 



IS IT TOO LATE FOR WOMEN TO BEGIN? 61 

breaking her down, it is no more than a woman of 
her vigor needs — indeed, not so much as she needs 
— to keep her well and strong. 

And, besides escaping the bodily tire and ex- 
haustion, look at the happiness it brings her in the 
exhilaration which comes with ruddy health, in the 
feeling of being easily equal to whatever comes 
up, in being a stranger to indigestion, to nervous- 
ness and all its kindred ailments. This vital force, 
sparing her many of the doubts and fears so com- 
mon to the weak, but which the strong seldom 
know, enables her to endure patiently privation, 
watching, and bereavement. And who is the more 
likely to live to a ripe old age, the woman who 
never took suitable and adequate exercise to give 
her even moderate vitality and strength, or she 
who, by a judicious and sensible system, suited 
to her particular needs, has developed such pow- 
ers? 

But, while this is all well enough for young 
girls, is it not too late for full-grown women to 
attempt to get the same benefits ? The girl was 
young and plastic, and, with proper care, could be 
moulded in almost any way; but the woman al- 
ready has her make and set, and these cannot read- 
ily be changed. Perhaps not quite so readily, but 
actual trial will show that the difficulty is largely 
imaginary. To many, indeed to most women, the 



62 HOW TO GET STKONG, ETC. 

idea is absolutely new, and they never supposed 
such change possible. Bryant, beginning at forty, 
made exercise pay wonderfully. Bear in mind 
how, with a few minutes a day, Maclaren enlarged 
and strengthened men thirty years old ; that, out 
of his class of over a hundred, the greatest gain 
was in the oldest man in it, and he was thirty-live. 
Let us look at what one or two women have man- 
aged to effect by systematic and thorough bodily 
training. In " The Coming Man " Charles Reade 
says (p. 50), "Nathalie, a French gymnast, and 
not a woman of extraordinary build, can take two 
fifty -six -pound weights from the ground, one in 
each hand, and put them slowly above her head." 
She has "a sister who goes np the slack -rope. 
Farini saw her pitted against twenty sailors. The 
sailors had a slack-rope ; she had another. A sail- 
or went up as far as he could ; the gymnast went 
as high on her rope at the same time. Sailor came 
down tired, the lady fresh. Another sailor went 
up, the lady ditto ; and so on. She wore out the 
whole twenty, having gone up an aggregate of feet 
higher than St. Peter's Church at Rome. This 
feat is due to great strength, complete either-hand- 
edness, and the athlete's power of pinching a rope 
with the sinews of the lower limbs." 

But is this great and unusual strength, especially 
of the arms, desirable in most women? Not at all; 



IS IT TOO LATE FOR WOMEN TO BEGIN? 63 

but that is not the point. When Farini says that 
the first step toward making one a skilled gym- 
nast or acrobat is to bring up the weak arm, and 
shoulder, and side — usually the left — until equally 
strong with its, till now, superior mate, and that he 
is constantly doing that, he is doing more by far 
than would be needed to make most women, not 
as strong as acrobats and performers, but — a far 
more important matter — reasonably and comforta- 
bly so, sufficiently to keep nervous disorders away, 
to enable them to be far better equal to the daily 
duties, and to spend life with an appreciation and 
zest too often unknown by the weak woman ; final- 
ly, to preserve for a woman the bloom and healthy 
look which once in a while she sees, even in a 
woman of advanced years, and which would be her 
own did she use the means to have it. 

And what should a woman do to get this health 
and strength and bloom? Just what is done by 
the young girl. Indeed, there are a hundred exer- 
cises, almost any of which, faithfully followed up, 
would help directly to bring the desired result. 
With her, as with girl or man or boy, the first 
thing is to symmetrize, to bring up the weaker 
muscles by special effort, calling them at once into 
vigorous action, and to restore to its proper posi- 
tion the shoulder, back, or chest, which has been so 
long allowed to remain out of place. The sym- 



64 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

metry once gained, then equal work for all the 
muscles, taken daily, and in such quantities as are 
found to suit best. 

The variety of exercises open to woman, espe- 
cially out-of-doors, is almost as great as to man. 
Every one knows some graceful horsewoman, and 
it is a pity there were not a hundred where there 
is one. One of the most expert of our acquaint- 
ance is the mother of one of the most gifted meta- 
physicians in the land, and he already is a middle- 
aged man. There are a few ladies in this country, 
and a good many in England, who think nothing 
of a five or six mile walk daily, and an occasional 
one of twice that length. Once in a while a mar- 
ried woman here will do some long-distance skat- 
ing. In Holland, in the season, it is with many an 
e very-day affair. Some of the best swimmers and 
floaters at the watering-places are women, and they 
certainly do not look much troubled with nervous- 
ness. More than one woman has distinguished 
herself in Alpine climbing. The writer once saw 
a woman, apparently about twenty- eight, a hand- 
some, vigorous, rosy Englishwoman, row her father 
from Putney to Mortlake, on the Thames, a dis- 
tance of four miles and three furlongs, not at rac- 
ing pace, to be sure, but at a lively speed. The 
measured precision of that lady's stroke, the stately 
poise of the body and head, and the clean, neat, and 



IS IT TOO LATE FOR WOMEN TO BEGIN? 65 

effective feathering, would have done credit to an 
old Oxford oar. 

What woman has done, woman may do. Bind 
one arm in a sling, and keep it utterly idle for a 
month, and meanwhile ply the other busily with 
heavy work, such as swinging a hammer, axe, or 
dumb-bell, and is it hard to say which will be the 
healthier, the plumper, the stronger — the live arm, 
at the end of the month ? And will this only ap- 
ply to men's arms, and not to women's? Who 
has usually the stronger, and almost generally the 
shapelier arm — the woman who, surrounded with 
servants, takes her royal ease, and has American 
notions and ways of exercise, or the busy maid in 
her kitchen ? If the latter's arm is large, yet not 
well-proportioned, it simply means that some of 
its muscles have been used far more than the 
others. 

Now, to her who understands what exercises will 
develop each of the muscles of that arm, and who 
can tell at sight which are fully developed or de- 
veloped at all, and which are not, it is easy to bring 
up the backward ones, and so secure the symmetry 
and the consequent general strength. The same 
rule holds good of all the other muscles, as well as 
those of the arm. 

Plenty of active out-door work will go far to- 
ward securing health. But it will only develop 

5 



66 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC 



the parts brought into play, and there ought to be 
exercise for all. 

Now what daily work, and how much of it, will 
secure this symmetry, erectness, and strength, sup- 
posing that, at the outset, there is no organic de- 
fect, but that the woman is simply weak both in 
her muscular and in her vital systems? In the 
first place, let it be understood that the connection 
between these systems is intimate, and that the ju- 
dicious building and strengthening of the former, 
and the keeping up that strength by sensible daily 
exercise, tells directly on the latter. Vigorous mus- 
cular exercise, properly taken, enlarges the respira- 
tion, quickens the circulation, improves the diges- 
tion, the working, in fact, of all the vital parts. 
Dr. Mitchell says it is the very thing also to quiet 
the excited nerves and brain. 

The amount of that exercise daily depends on 
the present strength of the woman. If she is 
weak generally, for the first fortnight the exer- 
cise, while general enough to bring all the mus- 
cles into play, must be light and easy, Then, as 
a little strength is gained, the work advances ac- 
cordingly. If partially strong at first, invariably 
the first thing to do is to adapt the exercise main- 
ly to the weaker muscles till they catch up. 

Suppose the right arm is stronger than the left, 
as frequently happens, because it has had more to 



IS IT TOO LATE FOR WOMEN TO BEGIN? 67 

do. For the first month — or, if necessary, for the 
first two months — let the left arm have nearly all 
the exercise, and that exercise as vigorous as it can 
comfortably take. Then, when it is found that it 
can lift or carry as heavy a weight, and pull or 
push as hard as the right, keep at it, by means of 
exercise, until both arms can do the same amount 
of work, and are equal. But suppose the arms are 
already equally strong, or, rather, equally weak — 
that both the back and chest are small; that is, 
not so large or well-proportioned as they should be 
in a well-built woman of a certain height — then 
all that is necessary is to select work especially 
adapted to strengthen the back, and other work 
telling directly on the chest. For the first fort- 
night very mild efforts should be made, and the 
advance should be gradual, taking great care never 
once to overdo it. Let the advance be made as 
the newly-acquired strength justifies and encour- 
ages it. What particular exercises will effect the 
strengthening and development of any given mus- 
cles will be pointed out in the chapter on Special 
Exercise, at the latter part of this book. 

How about the length of time this daily ex- 
ercising will take? It is all easy enough for the 
rich, whose time is their own, and who could spare 
four or five hours a day if necessary ; but how is 
the woman to manage it who must work from 



68 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

seven to six, or even far into the evening as well ? 
She can hardly get time to read about horseback 
riding and Alpine climbing, much less take part in 
them. Well, it is a poor system which cannot suit 
nearly all cases. The woman who works steadily 
from early morning till well into the night, espe- 
cially at employment at all sedentary and confin- 
ing, is undergoing a test and a hardship which will 
certainly call for a strong constitution, good condi- 
tion, and a brave spirit as well, or the strain will 
surely break her down, and bring to her perma- 
nent weakness. If so many hours must be spent 
in labor, then let her secure ten or fifteen minutes, 
upon rising, for a series of exercises in her room. 
At the dinner-hour, again at supper-time, and once 
about mid- morning, and again at mid -afternoon, 
three or five minutes could generally be spared for 
a few brisk exercises calculated to limber and call 
into vigorous action the back, and many of the 
muscles so long held almost motionless until they 
stiffen from it. If there is a whole hour at dinner- 
time, and half of it could be spent in walking, if 
possible with a cheerful and energetic companion, 
who would make her forget the dull routine of her 
day — not dawdling, aimless walking, but stepping 
out as if she meant it, with a spring and energy 
which quickens the pulse, driving the morning's 
thoughts out of the mind, scattering low spirits to 



IS IT TOO LATE FOR WOMEN TO BEGIN? 69 

the winds — it would bring a pleasant feeling of 
recreation and change. The benefit to be derived 
from snch a walk would be immediate and marked. 

Is this asking much ? A mile and a half could 
easily be covered in that time, and, by a strong 
walker, even two, while the dinner would taste 
twice as good for the exercise. Another mile, or 
even half a mile, might be walked at supper-time, 
the pace always being kept up. If the confine- 
ment is so close as not to permit even these few 
snatches of time for a little recreation, never mind. 
Do not give it up yet. The ten minutes on rising 
were made sure of anyhow.** Yes, another chance 
remains. When at last the work is over, even 
though it is time to retire, get out-of-doors for 
half an hour's smart walk with brother or friend, 
and see how refreshing it will prove. The jaded 
body will almost forget its tire, and the sleep which 
follows, while it may not be quite as long as be- 
fore, will make up in quality, and the new day 
will find a far fresher woman, one better up to 
her duties, than if no exercise had been taken. 

To her who does not labor so long, but has her 
evenings to herself, unless already broken by dis- 
ease, there need be no trouble about getting strong 



* See (page 169) how Mr. Bryant used those morning minutes, 
and how well he was repaid for it, too ! 



70 HOW TO GET STKONG, ETC. 

and healthy. Let her do the little exercise above 
mentioned till evening; then, first eating a hearty 
supper, beginning with such distance as she can 
walk easily, add to the distance gradually, until 
she finds herself equal to four or five miles at a 
smart pace for her — say three and a half miles to 
the hour. (The professional masculine pedestrians 
do eight miles an hour, to be sure ; but Miss Yon 
Hillern, for instance, is good for about six.) This, 
taken either every evening, or, say, four evenings 
a week, will soon give tone, and make the woman 
feel strong instead of weak, will enable her to 
digest what she eats, and will visibly improve her 
appetite. Let her give five or ten minutes for ex- 
ercising the arms and chest before retiring, and 
she has had abundant exercise for that day, while 
any trouble she has had in the past about sleep- 
ing is at an end. 

But sufficient as the evening walk is, of course 
if it can be had in daylight and in the sunshine, 
it is all the better. Few mothers are so placed 
that they cannot each day, by good management, 
get an hour for the care of their health. Let them 
be sure to take a quick, lively walk for the whole 
time, not with arms held motionless, but swinging 
easily as men's do — of course, for the first month 
taking less distances, but working steadily on 
They will be astonished at the very gratifying dif- 



IS IT TOO LATE FOR WOMEN TO BEGIN? 71 

ference in the result between it and the old list- 
less walk, and how much easier the day's duties 
come now. 

But there is one class of women who are espe- 
cially favored — a large class too, in our land — the 
daughters of parents so well to do that, between 
their graduation from school and the day they are 
married, their time is practically their own. If 
weak at the start, let them, after gradual exercise 
begins to make them stronger, take more besides 
the few minutes at rising and retiring, and the 
hearty constitutional afoot. If their walking is 
done in the afternoon, let them set apart half an 
hour in the latter part of the morning (if possible, 
with another girl similarly placed) for work which 
shall strengthen the arms and the whole trunk. 
If there is a good gymnasium convenient — espe- 
cially if it has a teacher of the right stamp — there 
will be the best place for this work. But if not, a 
little home gymnasium like that suggested later in 
the chapter on that subject, and which every girl 
ought to have, would be the place. Very soon 
this extra work will tell. Look what the four 
hours a week, just with two-pound wooden dumb- 
bells, very light Indian clubs, and light pulley- 
weights, did for a youth of nineteen in one year !* 

* See page 147. 



72 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

An increase of an inch in height, of one and a 
half around the upper arm, of three and a half 
inches in the girth of the chest, of fifteen pounds 
in weight — would not these work marked changes 
in any young woman, and would they not nearly 
always be most desirable changes? It is not a 
matter of inches and pounds alone. This increase 
of girth and weight is almost sure to tell most 
beneficially on the health and spirits as well — in 
short, on the general vigor. 

If, with the increase in size and strength, care 
has been taken to practise special exercises to make 
and keep her erect, to at all times, whether sitting, 
standing, or walking, hold the head and neck 
where they should be, there is not much doubt but 
that, even in one short year, the difference in any 
girl, not strong or straight at the beginning, will 
be very marked. It really lies with young women 
of this class to make themselves physically — in 
proportion to their height — what they will. 

Is there any need of pointing out to a spirited 
girl the value of a sound, healthy, and shapely 
body ? Is there any sphere in woman's life where 
it will not stand her in good stead, and render her 
far more efficient at whatever she is called on to 
do — as daughter, sister, wife or mother, teacher 
or friend ? Nor is the benefit limited even to her 
own lifetime, but her posterity are blessed by it 



IS IT TOO LATE FOR WOMEN TO BEGIN? 73 

as well. Would she like to have inherited con- 
sumptive tendencies, for instance, from her parent? 
Will her children like any better to inherit the same 
from her? In our Christian lands, we find, if his- 
tory be correct, that the great men have almost 
invariably had remarkable mothers, while their fa- 
thers were as often nothing unusual. The Sand- 
wich Island proverb, " If strong be the frame of 
the mother, her sons will make laws for the peo- 
ple," suggests truths that will hold good in many 
other places besides the Sandwich Islands. Let 
every intelligent girl and woman in this land bear 
in mind that, from every point of view, a vigorous 
and healthy body, kept toned up by rational, sys- 
tematic, daily exercise, is one of the very greatest 
blessings which can be had in this world ; that 
many persons spend tens of thousands of dollars 
in trying to regain even a part of this blessing 
when once they have lost it ; that the means of get- 
ting it are easily within the reach of all, who are 
not already broken by disease; that it is never too 
late to begin, and that one hour a day, properly 
spent, is all that is needed to secure it. 



74 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



CHAPTER V. 

WHY MEN SHOULD EXERCISE DAILY. 

The advantages to men of a well-built body, 
kept in thorough repair, are very great. Those of 
every class, whose occupation is sedentary, soon 
come to appreciate this. Some part of the ma- 
chinery gets out of order. It may be the head, or 
eyes, or throat ; it may be the lungs or stomach, 
liver or kidneys. Something does not go right. 
There is a clogging, a lack of complete action, and 
often positive pain. This physical clogging tells 
at once on the mental work, either making its ac- 
complishment uncomfortable and an effort, or be- 
coming so bad as to actually prevent work at all. 
It may make the man ill. There is very little 
doubt but that a large majority of ailments would 
be removed, or, rather, would never have come at 
all, had the lungs and also the muscles of the man 
had vigorous daily action to the extent that fre- 
quent trial had shown best suited to that man's 
wants. One of the quickest known ways of dis- 
pelling a headache is to give some of the muscles, 
those of the legs, for instance, a little hard, sharp 



WHY MEN SHOULD EXERCISE DAILY. 75 

work to do. The reason is obvious. Dr. Mitchell 
puts it well when he says that muscular exercise 
flushes the parts engaged in it, and so depletes the 
brain. 

But fortunately that same exercise also helps 
make better blood, gets the entire lungs into ac- 
tion, quickens the activity of the other vital or- 
gans, and so tones up the whole man, that, if the 
exercise is taken daily and is kept up, disorder, 
unless very deep-seated, disappears. 

It is well known that when the system, from 
any cause, gets run down, disease is more likely to 
enter, and slower at being shaken off. Thousands 
and hundreds of thousands of men and women 
have hard work, mental strain, fret and anxiety, 
daily, and for years together — indeed, scarcely do 
anything to lighten the tension in this direction. 
They tell you they are subject to headache or dys- 
pepsia, or other disorder, as if it was out of the 
question to think of preventing it. But had the N 
work been so arranged, as it nearly always could 
be — far oftener than most persons think — to se- 
cure daily an hour for vigorous muscular exercise 
for all the parts, this running down would, in most 
instances, never come. The sharp, hot work, till 
the muscles are healthily tired, insures the good 
digestion, the cleared brain, the sound sleep, the 
buoyant spirits. 



76 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

The president of one of the largest banks in 
this country told the writer that, disappointed one 
summer in not getting a run to Europe, reflection 
told him that one marked benefit such jaunts had 
brought him was from the increased sleep he was 
enabled to get, that thereupon he determined on 
longer sleeps at home. He got them, and found, 
as he well put it, that he could " fight better." Be- 
set all day long with men wanting heavy loans, 
that fighting tone, that ability to say "no" at the 
right time and in a way which showed he meant 
it, must have not only added to his own well-being, 
but to the bank's protection as well. 

Again, many men are liable to occasionally have 
sudden and very protracted spells of head-work, 
where sleep and almost everything else must give 
way, so that the business in hand may be gotten 
through with. " Tom Brown " told the writer that, 
when in Parliament, he could work through a whole 
week together on but four hours of sleep a night, 
and be none the worse for it, provided he could 
have all he wanted the next week, and that since 
he was twenty -five he had hardly known a sick 
day. 

A father, tired from his day of busy toil, may 
have a sick child, who for much of the night will 
not let him sleep. Such taxes as this, coming to 
one already run down and weak, cannot be braved 



WHY MEN SHOULD EXERCISE DAILY. 77 

frequently with impunity. Unless the five or six 
miles a day of Tom Brown and his fellow-English- 
men's ■• constitutional,'' or some equivalent, is re- 
sorted to, and the man kept well toned-up, one of 
these sudden calls may prove too severe, and do 
serious if not fatal injury. This toning-up is not 
all. If the bodily exercise is such as to get all the 
muscles strong, and keep them so, the very work 
that would otherwise overdo and exhaust now has 
no such effect, but is gone through with spirit 
and ease. There is that consciousness of strength 
which is equal to all such trifles. 

The very nervousness and worry which used to 
be so wearing, at the sudden and ceaseless calls of 
the day, have gone, and for the reason that strong 
nerves and strong muscles are very liable to go to- 
gether, and not to mind these things. What does 
the athlete at the top of his condition know about 
nervousness? He is blithe as a lark all the day 
long. 

Dr. Mitchell says : " The man who lives an out- 
door life — who sleeps with the stars visible above 
him, who wins his bodily subsistence at first-hand 
from the earth and waters — is a being w r ho defies 
rain and sun, has a strange sense of elastic strength, 
may drink if he likes, and may smoke all day long, 
and feel none the worse for it. Some such return 
to the earth for the means of life is what gives 



78 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

vigor and developing power to the colonists of an 
older race cast on a land like ours. A few gen- 
erations of men living in such fashion store up 
a capital of vitality which accounts largely for the 
prodigal activity displayed by their descendants, 
and made possible only by the sturdy contest with 
nature which their ancestors have waged. That 
such a life is still led by multitudes of our coun- 
trymen is what alone serves to keep up our pris- 
tine force and energy." 

Now, while this extreme hardiness and tone 
cannot be had by a person who has twelve hours 
of busy brain -work daily in -doors, and only one 
of bodily exercise, still, much can be done, quite 
enough to calm and tranquillize, and to carry easily 
over those passes which used to be dreaded. 

If the man who habitually works too long with- 
out a rest would every hour or so turn lightly 
from his work, for even sixty seconds, to some vig- 
orous exercise right in his office, or even in the 
next room or hall-way, until the blood got out of 
his brain a little, and the muscles tingled with a 
hearty glow, he would go back so refreshed as to 
quickly make up, both in the quantity and quality 
of his work, for the time lost. When his hour for 
exercise came, instead of having no heart for it, he 
would spring to it with alacrity, like the school-boy 
does to his play. 



WHY MEN SHOULD EXERCISE DAILY. 79 

Even if the strong man does occasionally be- 
come jaded, he knows, as Hughes did, how to get 
back his strength and snap, and that a tired man 
is many removes from a tired-out one. There is 
a great deal in knowing whether your work is 
overdoing you or simply tiring you. One of the 
strongest and best oarsmen Harvard ever had, used, 
at first, to think he ought to stop rowing when he 
began to perspire, and was quite astounded when 
an older man told him that that was only the be- 
ginning of the real work. There is no end of 
comfort to a tired man, either mentally or physi- 
cally, in the thought that sure relief is near. 

Again, this relief by physical exercise will en- 
courage the man to hope that, if war or accident 
do not cut him down, he may look for a long 
life, no matter how great may be the occasional 
strain. Few men, for instance, familiar w 7 ith the 
life of the Duke of Wellington \vill claim that 
they are better w r orkers than he was, or that they 
get through more in a day or year, or that, heavy 
as their responsibilities may be, they surpass or 
even equal those which were his for years together. 
Yet all the terrible mental strain this illustrious 
man underwent, battling with one of the greatest 
captains this world ever saw, all the exposure and 
forced marching, privation and toil, which come to 
the faithful soldier, and to him who holds the lives 



80 HOW TO GET STKONG, ETC. 

of multitudes in his hands, this man knew, and yet 
so controlled his work, exacting as it all was, as 
to manage to keep his body superior to all it was 
called on to do, and his mind in constant working 
order, and this not merely up to threescore and 
ten, but to fourscore good years, and three more 
besides. Did not the vigorous body at the start, 
and the daily attention to it, pay him? 

Will it be claimed that the president of one of 
the best-known corporations on this continent did 
any more work than Wellington ? That president 
was at it all day, and far into the night, and 
when away in Europe, nominally on a play-spell, 
as well. Naturally, he was a strong, energetic 
man ; but he had so worked, and so neglected his 
body, that he died at fifty-two. Which of the two 
men showed the better sense ? 

What does cutting one's self down at fifty-two 
mean ? Five minutes' reflection should tell any 
reasonable person that the man was overworking 
himself, and going at a pace no man could hold 
and live. Does not this show a lack of sense, and 
especially when much of that work could certainly 
have been done by subordinates ? Was not one of 
Daniel Webster's best points his skill in getting 
work done by others, and saving for himself the 
parts he liked best ? 

When, after long years of toil and perseverance, 



WHY MEN SHOULD EXERCISE DAILY. 81 

one has worked himself up to position and wide 
influence, is it sensible to do what his humblest 
employe could rightly tell him is overcrowding, 
and so forcing the pace that he certainly cannot 
hold it ? Instead of taking that position and that 
influence and wielding them for greater ends, and 
improving them very markedly, must there not be 
a keen pang to their owner when, tantalized with 
what seems surely within his grasp, that grasp it- 
self weakens, and the machine goes all to pieces ? 

These later years are especially the precious 
ones to the wealthy man. They are his best days. 
Then his savings, and his earnings too, accumu- 
late as they did not when he was younger. Look 
at the work done by Vanderbilt, for example, ac- 
complished almost thirty years after he was fifty- 
two ! Did not the active out-door life on the little 
periauger of his youth, and the daily constitution- 
als which, notwithstanding his infirmities, all New 
Yorkers saw him taking in later life, pay him ? 
And are they less precious in any other line of 
life? 

Look for a moment at the value health is to a 
man in any of the learned professions — of having 
a sound and vigorous body, with each branch of 
his vital system working regularly, naturally, and 
in harmony with the rest. Do these things make 
no difference to the divine ? Had the sturdy, prize- 

6 



82 HOW TO GET STKONG, ETC. 

fighter make of Martin Luther nothing to do with 
his contempt for the dangers awaiting his appear- 
ance before Charles V. and his Diet of Worms, and 
which caused him to say he would go there though 
the devils were as thick as the tiles on the houses ; 
and with the grand stand he made for the religious 
light which now shines so freely upon the whole 
Christian world? 

James Guthrie, first tying one hand behind him, 
with the other could whip any man in Oxford who 
would also fight one-handed. Who doubts that 
the vigor so evinced had much to do with the 
faithful, arduous life's work he did, and did so 
well that all Scotland is to-day justly proud of 
him? 

Have the magnificent breadth and depth of 
Spurgeon's chest, and his splendid outfit of vital 
organs, no connection with his great power and 
influence as a preacher of world-wide renown? 
Have the splendid physique and abounding vi- 
tality of Henry Ward Beecher — greater almost 
than that of any man in a hundred thousand — 
nothing to do with his ability to attend to his du- 
ties as pastor, author, lecturer, and editor — work 
enough to kill half a dozen ordinary men — and 
with the tireless industry which must precede his 
marked success in them all ? Are not the tower- 
ing form, the ruddy health, and grand, manly vigor 



WHY MEN SHOULD EXERCISE DAILY. 83 

of Dr. John Hall weighty elements, first in putting 
together, and then in driving home, the honest, 
earnest, fearless words which all remember who 
ever heard him speak? Have not the great bodies 
of those two young giants of the American pulpit, 
Phillips Brooks and Joseph Cook, proved most 
valuable accessories to their great brains ? 

Is there anything feeble about any of these ? 
Put the tape-measure around them anywhere you 
like, and see how generous nature has been with 
them. Is it all a mere chance that they happen 
to have splendid bodies ? Why is it that we nev- 
er hear of such as these having "ministers' sore 
throat," and " blue Mondays," and having to be 
sent by their congregations, every now and then, 
away to a foreign land to recruit their health and 
keep them up to their work? Do sound and stur- 
dy bodies, and due attention daily to keeping them 
in good repair, have nothing to do with their abil- 
ity to cope at all times with the duty lying next to 
them — and with their attention to it, too, in such a 
way as to make them so much more effective than 
other men in their great life's work ? 

That the physician himself needs sound health 
and plentiful strength, few will question ; and yet, 
does he, from his calling alone, do anything to in- 
sure it? Dragged from his bed at all hours of the 
night, thrown daily, almost hourly, in contact with 



84 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



deadly disease — often so contagious that others 
shrink from going where he goes, like the brave 
man he mast be to face such dangers— would not 
that general toned-up condition of the thoroughly 
sound and healthy man prove a most valuable boon 
to him — indeed, often save his life ? And yet, does 
his daily occupation insure him that boon, even 
though it does enable him to get out-of-doors far 
more than most men who earn their living by 
mental labor ? Witness one of their own number, 
Dr. Mitchell, on this point ; for he says, " The doc- 
tor, who is supposed to get a large share of exer- 
cise, in reality gets very little after he grows too 
busy to walk, and has then only the incidental ex- 
posure to out- door air." Would not a sensible 
course of physical exercise daily pay him — espe- 
cially when pretty much all the muscular work he 
gets of any account is for his forearms and a little 
of his back, and then only when he drives a hard- 
bitted horse ? 

And does not a lawyer need a good body, and 
one kept in good order ? After the first few years, 
when his practice is once well established, he finds 
that, unlike men in most other callings, his even- 
ings are not his own, and that, if he is going to 
read any law, and to attempt to keep up with the 
new decisions every year, even in his own State, 
what between court work, the preparation of his 



WHY MEN SHOULD EXERCISE DAILY. 85 

cases, drawing papers, consultation, correspondence, 
and the other matters which fill up the daily round 
of the lawyer in active practice, that reading will 
have to be done out of office-hours often, or not 
done at all. Even in his evenings his business is 
too pressing to allow any time for reading. Here, 
then, is a man who is in serious danger of being 
cut off from that rest and recreation which most 
other men can have. The long, steady strain, day 
and evening, often breaks him down, where an 
hour's active exercise daily on the road or on the 
water, with his business for the time scrupulously 
forgotten, together with from a quarter to half an 
hour, on rising and retiring, in strengthening his 
arms and chest, would have kept him as tough and 
fresh as they did Bryant, not simply up to sixty, 
or even seventy, but clear up to his eighty-fourth 
year. Every lawyer who has been in active prac- 
tice in any of our large cities for a dozen years 
can point to members of his Bar who have either 
broken clean down, and gone to a premature grave 
from neglecting their bodily health, or who are 
now far on the road in that same direction. This 
happens notwithstanding the fact that in many 
places the courts do not sit once during the whole 
summer, and lawyers can hence get longer vaca- 
tions and go farther from home than most men. 
Let any one read the life of Kuf us Choate, and 



86 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

say whether there was any need of his dying an 
old man at fifty-five. He started not with a weak 
body, but one decidedly strong. So little care did 
he take of it that, as he himself well put it, " lat- 
terly he hadn't much of any constitution, but sim- 
ply lived under the by-laws." Did it hinder his 
distinguished compeer, Daniel Webster, from mag- 
nificent success at the bar because he took many 
a good play-spell with a fishing-rod in his hand? 
because he not only knew but regarded the ad- 
vantage and wisdom of keeping his body toned-up 
and hearty, and so regarded it that he died, not 
at fifty-five, but at the end of the full threescore 
years and ten ? And did grand physical presence, 
the most impressive which ever graced American 
forum or senate-chamber — so striking, in fact, that, 
as he walked the streets of Liverpool, the laboring 
men stopped work and backed their admiring gaze 
by concluding that he must be a king — did these 
qualities not contribute to that same magnificent 
success ? Daniel O'Connell was a man of sturdier 
body even than Webster, of whom Wendell Phil- 
lips says : " He was the greatest orator that ever 
spoke English. A little O'Connell would have 
been no O'Connell. Every attitude was beauty, 
every gesture grace. There was a magnetism that 
melted every will into his." 

Had not this wonderful man much to thank 



WHY MEN SHOULD EXERCISE DAILY. 87 

these same qualities for? Had they not some- 
thing to do with the stretching of his vigorous life, 
not merely up to fifty-five, or even to seventy, but 
clear up to seventy -three? How many men has 
the world ever seen who filled, and well filled, more 
high offices than Henry Brougham, and who, no 
matter where he was, was always a tireless worker? 
One biographer says that, as a boy, he was the 
fleetest runner in the neighborhood, and this man, 
"as an orator, second in his time only to Canning;" 
this man, who once spoke in Parliament for sev- 
en days consecutively, who, even when upward of 
seventy, showed his zeal for reform by urging the 
introduction into England of the New York Code 
of Procedure — this one of England's most famous 
Lord Chancellors took such care of his body that 
he never ceased from his labors until he was eigh- 
ty-nine. 

Let us look at but one more instance of the way 
a powerful mind and an uncommonly strong body 
blend and aid their possessor to his purposes. A re- 
cent writer in " Blackwood" says of Bismarck : "He 
is a powerful man. That is what strikes at once 
every one who sees him for the first time. He is 
very tall and of enormous weight, but not ungain- 
ly. Every part of his gigantic frame is well-pro- 
portioned — the large round head, the massive neck, 
the broad shoulders, and the vigorous limbs. He is 



88 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

now more than sixty-three, and the burden he has 
had to bear has been usually heavy ; but though 
his step has become slow and ponderous, he carries 
his head high — looking down, even, on those who 
are as tall as himself — and his figure is still erect. 
During these latter years he has suffered frequent 
and severe bodily pain, but no one could look upon 
him as an old man, or as one to be pitied. On the 
contrary, everybody who sees him feels that Prince 
Bismarck is still in possession of immense physi- 
cal power? 

And what holds good as to professional men in 
this respect of course will apply with equal force 
to busy brain-workers in any other line as well. 
It is nowhere claimed here that there have not 
been in many callings great men whose bodies 
were indifferent affairs, but endeavor has been 
made to show, not only that a great mind and a 
vigorous body can go together, but that the latter 
is, not to the man of unusual mental power alone, 
but to every man, a most valuable acquisition, and 
one that he should, if he does not possess it al- 
ready, take prompt steps to secure, and then, once 
acquiring it, should use the means, as Bryant did, 
to retain it. 

In the 1877-78 annual report of Harvard Col- 
lege, President Eliot, who has been exceptionally 
well -placed to observe several thousand young 



WHY MEN SHOULD EXERCISE DAILY. 89 

men, and to know what helps and what hinders 
their intellectual progress, adds his valuable testi- 
mony to the importance of vigorous health and 
regular physical exercise to all who have, or ex- 
pect to have, steady and severe mental work to do. 
Busy professional men may well heed his words. 
Speaking of the value of scholarships to poor but 
deserving young men, he says : " If sound health 
were one of the requisitions for the enjoyment of 
scholarships, parents who expected to need aid in 
educating their boys would have their attention 
directed in an effective way to the wise regimen 
of health ; while young men who had their own 
education to get would see that it was only pru- 
dent for them to secure a wholesome diet, plenty 
of fresh air, and regular exercise. A singular 
notion prevails, especially in the country, that it is 
the feeble, sickly children who should be sent to 
school and college, since they are apparently unfit 
for hard work. The fact that, in the history of 
literature, a few cases can be pointed out in which 
genius was lodged in a weak or diseased body, is 
sometimes adduced in support of the strange prop- 
osition that physical vigor is not necessary for 
professional men. But all experience contradicts 
these notions. To attain success and length of 
service in any of the learned professions ', includ- 
ing that of teaching, a vigorous body is well-nigh 



90 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



essential. A busy lawyer, editor, minister, physi- 
cian, or teacher has need of greater physical en- 
durance than a farmer, trader, manufacturer, or 
mechanic. All professional biography teaches that 
to win lasting distinction in sedentary r , in-door 
occupations ', which task the brain and the ner- 
vous system,, extraordinary toughness of body must 
accompany extraordinary mental powers? 



HOME GYMNASIUMS. 91 



CHAPTER VI. 

HOME GYMNASIUMS. 

All that people need for their daily in-door ex- 
ercises is a few pieces of apparatus which are fort- 
unately so simple and inexpensive as to be within 
the reach of most persons. Buy two pitchfork 
handles at the agricultural store. Cut off enough 
of one of them to leave the main piece a quarter 
of an inch shorter than the distance between the 
jambs of your bedroom door, and square the ends. 
On each of these jambs fasten two stout hard- wood 
cleats, so slotted that the squared ends of the 
bar shall fit in snugly enough not to turn. Let 
the two lower cleats be directly opposite each oth- 
er, and about as high as your shoulder; the other 
two also opposite each other, and as high above 
the head as you can comfortably reach. 

Again, bore into the jamb, at about the height 
of your waist, a hole as large as the bar is thick. 
Now work the auger farther into each hole, till it 
reaches the first piece of studding, and then an 
inch or so into that. Find how many inches it is 
from the jamb to the end of the bore in the stud- 



92 



HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 




Fig. 3. 



HOME GYMNASIUMS. 93 

ding, and cut the second fork handle in halves. 
Pass one half through the hole in the jamb, and 
set its end into the hole in the studding. Bore a 
similar hole in the other jamb directly opposite, 
and repeat the last-named process with its nearest 
stndding-piece, and adjust remainder of the fork 
handle to it. Now cut enough off each piece of 
the handle to leave the distance between the two 
about eighteen inches. You have then provided 
yourself with a pair of bars on which you can 
try one of the exercises usually practised on the 
parallel bars, and that one worth almost as much 
as all the rest, (See Fig. 3.) 

On the following page is a sketch of a pair of 
pulley- weights recently made, designed by Dr. Sar- 
gent, which are excellent. Their merits will be seen 
at a glance. Instead of the weights swaying side- 
ways and banging against the boxes, as they are 
liable to do in the ordinary old-fashioned pulley- 
weight boxes, they travel in boxes, A A, between 
the rods B B. A rubber bed also prevents the 
weight from making a noise as it strikes the floor, 
while another capital feature is the arrangement 
of boxes, in which you may graduate the weight 
desired by adding little plates of a pound each, 
instead of the unchanging weight of the old plan. 

One of these boxes, with its load, can easily be 
used as a rowing-weight, by rigging a pulley-wheel 



94 



HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 




Fig. 4. 



HOME GYMNASIUMS. 95 

a few inches above the floor, and directly in front 
of the weight box, and then making the rope long 
enough to also pass under this pulley. A stick of 
the thickness of an oar handle can then be attach- 
ed to the end of the rope. If the old-fashioned 
pulley-weights are preferred, as they are cheaper, 
long boxes take the place of these iron rods, and a 
common iron weight travels up and down in the 
boxes. At some of the gymnasiums — that of the 
Young Men's Christian Association in New York, 
for example — these weights, of various sizes, snaf- 
fles, ropes, and handles, can all be had, of approved 
pattern and at reasonable rates. 

Here, then, w r e have a horizontal bar fitted for 
most of the uses of that valuable appliance, a pair 
of parallel bars, or their equivalent for certain pur- 
poses, a pair of pulling- weights, and a rowing- 
weight. Now, w r ith the addition of a pair of 
dumb-bells, weighing at first about one twenty- 
fifth of the user's own weight, we have a gymna- 
sium more comprehensive than most persons would 
imagine. Mr. Bryant was contented for forty years 
w T ith less apparatus even than this, and yet look at 
the benefit he derived from it I* The bar, cleats, 
and parallels ought to be made and put up for not 
over two dollars, and four or five dollars more will 

* See page 169. 



96 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

cover the cost of pulling-weights and gear on the 
old plan, unless a heavy rowing-weight is added, 
which can be had at five cents a pound, which is 
also the price of well-shaped dumb-bells. 

Here is a gymnasium, then, under cover, rent 
free, exactly at hand, when one is lightly clad on 
rising or just before retiring, which takes up but 
little room, can hardly get out of order, which will 
last a dozen years. With these few bits of appa- 
ratus every muscle of the trunk, nearly all those 
of the legs, and all those of the arms, can, by a few 
exercises so simple that they can be learned at a 
single trying, be brought into active play. The 
bar in the upper place will be useful mainly for 
grasping, hanging, or swinging on by the hands, 
or for pulling one's self up until the chin touches 
it. In the lower place it enables one to perform 
very many of the exercises usual on the horizontal 
bar. The short bars or handles have scarcely more 
than one office, but that is one of the most impor- 
tant of all exercises for the weak-armed and the 
weak-chested. This exercise is the one called " dip- 
ping." The bars are grasped with the hands, the 
feet being held up off the floor ; then, starting 
with the elbows straight, gradually lowering until 
the elbows are bent as far as possible, then rising 
till they are straight again, and so continuing. 

The pulley-weights admit of a great variety of 



HOME GYMNASIUMS. 97 

uses, reaching directly every muscle of the hand, 
wrist, arm, shoulder, chest, abdomen, the entire 
back and neck ; while, by placing one foot in the 
handle and pulling the weight with it, several of 
the leg muscles soon have plenty to do, as is also 
the case with the rowing-weight. The field of the 
dumb-bells is hardly less extensive. 

If but one of these pieces of apparatus can be 
had, the pulley-weights are the most comprehen- 
sive, and so the most important, though it is aston- 
ishing how closely the dumb-bells follow; and then 
they have the great advantage of being portable. 
Combine with the exercises you can get from all 
this apparatus those which need none at all, such as 
rising on the toes, hopping, stooping low, walking, 
running, leaping, and no more tools are needed 
to develop whatever muscles one likes. What spe- 
cial work will employ any particular muscle will 
be indicated later. 

If the apparatus is only to be used by a man or 
boy, a striking-bag can be made of seven or eight 
pieces of soft calf- skin, so that the whole, when 
full of sawdust, shall be either round like a ball or 
pear-shaped, and shall be about fifteen inches in 
horizontal diameter. This should be hung on a 
rope from a hook screwed into one of the beams 
of the ceiling. This makes a valuable acquisition 
to the snug little home-gymnasium. For a person 

7 



98 HOW TO GET STKONG, ETC. 

having a weak chest, and who aims to broaden and 
deepen that important region, perhaps no better 
and safer contrivance can be had than the one 
sketched in Fig. 8, on page 248. 

The fact of having a few bits of apparatus close 
at hand, when one is lightly clad, will tend to 
tempt any one to get at them a little while morn- 
ing and evening. If a parent wants children to 
use them, instead of placing the apparatus in his 
own room, the nursery, or an empty room where 
all can have ready access, would be better. Of 
course, in such case there should be additional 
weights, and dumb-bells suited to the age and 
strength of those who are to use them.* Indeed, 
by providing children at home with articles which 
they like to use, and the use of which brings much 
direct good, the nursery has a new value — greater, 
perhaps, when made the most of, than it ever had 
before. All the exercises needed to make children 
strong can be readily learned, as all of them are 
exceedingly simple. In another place these exer- 
cises will be indicated. The parent can then se- 
lect those exercises he sees the child needs, and 
teach them in a few minutes, so arranging it as to 
get the children to exercise a certain time every 
day. As has been shown, the cost of all these ap- 

* See page 266. 



HOME GYMNASIUMS. 99 

pliances will not be nearly as much as a moder- 
ate doctor's bill, and quite as little as the patent 
gymnastic articles, which are so often praised, 
mostly by people who know little or nothing of 
other forms of exercise than those fitted to their 
own apparatus. A large beam, for instance, has 
been devised, with handles fastened by a contriv- 
ance above it, which is meant to restore the spine 
(when out of place) to its proper position. But 
there is scarcely anything it can accomplish which 
cannot readily be done on some one of these sim- 
ple, old-fashioned, and far less cumbrous pieces of 
apparatus. 

Again, in the large cities there are establish- 
ments where the chief and almost the sole exer- 
cise is with the lifting-machine. A person, stand- 
ing nearly erect, is made to lift heavy weights often 
of several hundred, and even a thousand or more 
pounds. The writer, when a lad of seventeen, 
worked a few minutes nearly every day for six 
months on a machine of this kind; and while it 
seemed a fine thing to lift six hundred pounds at 
first, and over a thousand toward the end, there 
came an unquestioned stiffening of the back, as 
though the vertebrae were packed so closely togeth- 
er as to prevent their free action. There came also 
a very noticeable and abnormal development of 
three sets of muscles : those of the inner side of 



100 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC 



the forearm, the lower and inner end of the front 
thigh just above the knee, and those highest up on 
the back, branching outward from the base of the 
neck. With considerable other vigorous exercise 
taken at the same time, this heavy lifting still pro- 
duced the most marked effect, so that the devel- 
opment caused by it was soon large, out of all 
proportion compared with that resulting from the 
other work. 

Now, if it is the fact that they who practice on 
the " health lift " ordinarily take little or no other 
vigorous exercise, why is not this same partial de- 
velopment going to result? And if this is the 
case, is it not rather a questionable exercise, espe- 
cially for those to whom it is so highly recom- 
mended — the sedentary — and even worse for those 
who stand at desks all day? We have seen it 
make one very stiff and ungainly in his move- 
ments, and it is natural that it should ; for he who 
does work of the grade suited to a truck-horse is 
far more likely to acquire the heavy and pon- 
derous ways of that worthy animal than he who 
spreads his exercise over all, or nearly all, his mus- 
cles, instead of confining it to a few, and who 
makes many vigorous and less hazardous efforts 
instead of a single mighty one. All the muscles 
of the arm, for instance, which are used in striking 
out, putting up a dumb-bell, or any sort of push- 



HOME GYMNASIUMS. 101 

ing, are wholly idle in this severe pulling — more 
so, even, than they are in the oarsman when row- 
ing. Hence, unless they get even work, there will 
be loss of symmetry, one-sided development, and 
only partial strength. 

Another popular piece o£ apparatus is the " par- 
lor gymnasium ;" and, though needlessly expen- 
sive, it is a surprisingly useful affair, if once one 
knows how to use it to the best effect. But it has 
some disadvantages which, while not conceded by 
its inventor, it is yet well enough to know. In its 
more elaborate and complete form it is called the 
" Parlor Rowing Apparatus," and is also described 
as " the most complete rowing apparatus in the 
world." In reality it is very poorly adapted to the 
oarsman's wants, and tends to get him into habits 
he should, if he wishes to be a good oar, be careful 
to refrain from. It is a matter of supreme impor- 
tance in rowing to get a strong grip at the begin- 
ning of the stroke, and to put the weight on heav- 
ily then ; while it is a glaring fault to do anything 
like jerking toward the end of the stroke. But 
with this parlor rowing-machine, instead of lifting 
a solid weight, as in the ordinary rowing-weight, a 
rubber strap, or, rather, two rubber straps, are sim- 
ply stretched while the stroke is pulled, and then 
slackened to begin the next. The trouble is that 
the straps have to be pulled nearly half the length 



102 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

of the stroke before it begins to grow hard to pull, 
so that throwing one's weight on heavily at the 
beginning causes the rower to feel somewhat as he 
would if, in taking a stroke in a boat, his oar-blade 
had missed the water entirely, or as a boxer who 
unexpectedly beats the air. The better the begin- 
ning of a stroke is caught in the water, the more 
the fulcrum of water itself solidifies, and by so 
much more can the rower throw his weight on then, 
and at just the right time. The effect with the rub- 
ber straps is the very reverse ; for, in throwing the 
weight on at the beginning, the straps do not offer 
enough resistance to have the desired effect, while 
they offer too much at the finish of the stroke. 
This same defect stands out plainly in some of the 
pushing exercises done with it, as well as in using 
it as a lifting-machine, making it necessary, for the 
latter purpose, not to catch hold of the handles at 
all, but, as we have seen the inventor himself do, 
somewhere toward the middle of the straps, else 
the knees would get entirely straightened before 
the tension became great, which would force the 
bulk of the work to be done with the hands. 
Great care must be taken, also, to have the bolts 
at the farther ends of these straps fastened very 
firmly into the wood-work, or wherever they are 
attached ; for if, under a heavy pull, one of these 
bolts should work out, it would be in great danger 



HOME GYMNASIUMS. 103 

of striking the performer in the eye or elsewhere 
with terrific force. 

Still, with these few defects, this parlor rowing 
apparatus is an excellent contrivance, and, used 
intelligently and assiduously, ought to bring almost 
any development a person might reasonably hope 
for, though its range is hardly as wide as that of 
these few bits of house apparatus before named, 
when taken together. There is nothing novel 
about the latter, excepting Dr. Sargent's apparatus 
for the chest. All have been known for a gen- 
eration or more. But the many uses of them, are 
but little known, and their introduction into our 
homes and schools has hardly yet begun. Yet, so 
wide is the range of exercise one can have with 
them, and of exercise of the very sort so many 
people need ; and so simple is the method of work- 
ing them, so free, too, from danger or anything 
which induces one to overwork, and so inexpensive 
are they and easy to make, that they ought to be 
as common in our homes as are warm carpets and 
bright firesides. Every member of the family, both 
old and young, should use them daily, enough to 
keep both the home-gymnasium and its users in 
good working order. 



104 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE SCHOOL THE TRUE PLACE FOR CHILDREN'S PHYS- 
ICAL CULTURE. 

But, well adapted as our homes are in many 
ways for the proper care and development of the 
body, there is one place which, in almost every 
particular, surpasses them in this direction, if its 
advantages are understood and fully appreciated, 
and that is the school. A father may so arrange 
his time that a brief portion of it daily can be 
regularly allotted to the physical improvement of 
the children, as John Stuart Mill's father did his 
for his son's mental improvement, and with such 
remarkable results. But most fathers, from never 
having formed the habit, will be slow to learn it, 
and their time is already so taken up that it will 
seem impossible to spare any. The mother, being 
more with the child, feels its needs and lacks the 
more keenly, and would gladly deny herself much 
could she assure her children ruddy health. But 
her day is also by no means an idle one, and, just 
when she could best spare half an hour, it is hard- 
est to have them with her. Besides, in too many 



THE SCHOOL AND PHYSICAL CULTURE. 105 

instances she is herself far from strong, and needs 
some one to point out to her the way to physical 
improvement more, even, than do her children. 

There is a feeling that the child is sent to school 
to be educated, and that certain trained persons 
are paid to devote their time to that education. 
As they are supposed to bring the children forward 
in certain directions, this leads easily to the con- 
clusion that they would be the proper persons to 
care for other parts of that education as well. 
Nor is this view so w T ide of the mark. The teach- 
er has always a considerable number of scholars. 
He can encourage the slower by the example of 
the quicker ; he can arouse the emulation, he can 
get work easily out of a number together, where 
one or two would be hard to move. If he rightly 
understood his power; if he knew how easy it is, 
by a little judicious daily work, to prevent or re- 
move incipient deformity, to strengthen the weak, 
to form in the pupil the habit of sitting and stand- 
ing erect, to add to the general strength, to freshen 
the spirits, and do good in other ways, he would 
gladly give whatever time daily would be necessa- 
ry to the work, while, like most persons who try to 
benefit others, he would find that he himself would 
gain much by it as well. He has not a class of 
pupils stiffened by long years of hard overwork of 
some muscles, and with others dormant and unde- 



106 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC 



veloped. The time when children are with him is 
almost the best time in their wliole lives to shape 
them as he chooses, not morally or mentally only, 
but physically as well. The one shoulder, a little 
higher than its mate, will not be half so hard to re- 
store to place now as when confirmed in its position 
by long years of a bad habit, which should never 
have been tolerated a day. If the chest is weak 
and flat, or pigeon-breasted, now is the time to re- 
move the defect. Build up the arms to be strong 
and comely now ; accustom the chest and shoulders 
to their proper place, whatever their owner is at ; 
cover the back with full and shapely muscles ; get 
the feet used to the work which comes so easy and 
natural to them, once they are trained aright ; and 
the same boy who would have grown up half -built, 
ungraceful, and far from strong, will now ripen 
into a manly, vigorous, well-knit man, of sound 
mind and body, familiar with the possibilities of 
that body, with what is the right use and what the 
abuse of it, and knowing well how to keep it in 
that condition which shall enable him to accom- 
plish the best day's mental labor. And he will 
be far fitter to face the privations, anxieties, and 
troubles of life in the most successful way. 

Nor is the rule at all difficult to follow. Little 
by little the boy's mind is led along, until the diffi- 
cult problem in arithmetic seems no harder to him 



THE SCHOOL AND PHYSICAL CULTURE. 107 

than did the adding of two and two at first. For 
hundreds of years the mental training of youth has 
been a matter of careful thought and study, and no 
effort is spared to secure the best advantages of all 
the teaching of the past. But with that past be- 
fore him; with its many great men — not always, to 
be sure, but so often — men whose bodies were stur- 
dy, and equal to the tremendous tasks which their 
great activity of mind led them willingly to as- 
sume, he is encouraged and urged to keep his mind 
under continual pressure for many hours daily, and 
every incentive is brought to make the most of him 
in this direction. And yet that which would have 
helped him in almost every step he took, which 
would have fitted him to stand with ease what 
now in a few years so often breaks him down, is 
totally ignored and left quite out of sight. 

It is plainly no fault of his. The blame lies 
with the system which, for generations together, 
has gone along so blindly. The life a farmer's son 
leads makes him strong and hearty, and when his 
school-days are over his work is of such a sort as 
to maintain all his vigor. The city lad who plays 
on the brick sidewalks, born often of half -developed 
parents, has no daily tasks which bring his mus- 
cles into vigorous play, strengthening his digestion. 
Is there any possible reason why the city lad should 
be favored physically like the country boy? The 



108 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

first has every incentive for daily exercise, the lat- 
ter none at all. 

There ought to be no more delay in this matter 
of physical education in the schools. Prompt and 
vigorous steps should be taken to acquaint every 
school-teacher in this country with such exercises 
as would quickly restore the misshapen, insure an 
erect carriage, encourage habits of full breathing, 
and strengthen the entire trunk and every limb. If 
the teachers have not the requisite knowledge now, 
let it at once be acquired. They, of all persons, 
are expected to know how to acquire knowledge, 
and to aid others in doing the same. As soon as 
they have gained even partial knowledge of how 
to effect these things, let them lose no time in im- 
parting that knowledge to the pupil. 

Physical education ought to be made compul- 
sory in every school in this land. Have it direct- 
ly under the eye and guidance of the teacher, and 
have that teacher know that, at the quarterly or 
semi-annual examinations, reasonable progress will 
be expected in this department just as certainly as 
in any other, and if he is not up to his work, that 
some one who is will be put in his place. Then 
that progress will surely come. It has come al- 
ready, where the means have been understood and 
used, as witness Maclaren abroad and Sargent 
here; and it brings such a benefit to the pupil that 
no pains should be spared to insure it. 



THE SCHOOL AND PHYSICAL CULTURE. 109 

Scarcely a week passes but the press of our 
larger cities repeats the story of some overworked 
man or woman breaking completely down with 
general debility, the body not only a wreck, but 
too often the mind as well. Had that body been 
early shaped, and hardened, and made vigorous — 
as, for instance, Chief -justice Marshall's father 
looked to it that his great son's was — and the 
habit formed of taking daily work, and of the 
right sort to keep it so, and had the importance of 
that care been impressed on the mind till it had 
fixed itself as firmly as the sense of decency or the 
need of being clean, is it likely that the person 
would have allowed himself to get so run down, 
or, if he did, to remain so ? 

The trouble usually is that the man does not 
know what to do to tone himself up and keep him- 
self equal to his tasks, or that it needs but a little 
to effect this. He will spend money like water; 
he will travel fast and far ; he will do almost any- 
thing, but he knows no certain cure. Is it not as 
important to have good health and strength as to 
figure or write correctly, to read the -^Eneids or 
Homer, to pick up a smattering of French or Ger- 
man ? Who is the more likely, if his life be in- 
door and sedentary, not to live half his days — he 
who has never learned to build and strengthen 
his body, and keep it regulated and healthy, 



110 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

and to know the value of that health, or he who 
has? 

Is not work which will almost surely length- 
en one's life, and increase his usefulness, worth 
doing, especially when it takes but a very little 
while daily to do it, and less yet when the habit 
commenced in childhood? Go through our pub- 
lic and private schools, and see how few thor- 
oughly well-built boys and girls there are. Good 
points are not scarce, but how small the proportion 
of the deep-chested, the well-made and robust, who 
give good promise of making strong and healthy 
men and women ! Fortunately there is nothing 
really difficult in the work of strengthening the 
weak, making the somewhat crooked straight, of 
symmetrizing the partially developed ; indeed, on 
the other hand, it is, when once understood, sim- 
ple, inexpensive, and easy. More than all this, it 
is a work which the teacher will find that almost 
every scholar will take hold of, not, as in many 
other branches, with reluctance, but with alacrity ; 
and it is always pleasant teaching those who are 
eager to learn. 

But a little time each day is needed, never over 
half an hour of actual work in-doors and an hour 
out-of-doors. Suppose a teacher has forty pupils, 
and that thirty of them have either weak or indiffer- 
ent chests. Let ner form a chest-class out of the 



THE SCHOOL AND PHYSICAL CULTUKE. Ill 

thirty, and, for ten minutes a day, let them prac- 
tice exercises aimed exclusively to enlarge and de- 
velop the chest. Some of such exercises will be 
pointed out on page 245. Begin very gradually, so 
mildly that the weakest chest there shall have no 
ache or pain from the exercise. For the first week 
do that same work, and that much of it daily, and 
no more; but do it carefully, and do not miss a 
stroke. Let this exercise come at the appointed 
hour, as certainly as any other study. The second 
week make the work a trifle harder, or longer, or 
both. In this, and in every exercise, insist, as far 
as possible, on an erect carriage of the head and 
neck, and frequently point out their value. Insist, 
further, on the pupil's always inhaling as large, and 
full, and slow breaths as he can, seeing to it that 
every air-cell is brought into vigorous play. Be 
careful that he or she does not, without your knowl- 
edge, get hold of heavier apparatus, or try more 
difficult exercise in the same direction, before the 
muscles are trained to take it. Overdoing is not 
only useless, and sure to bring stiffness and aches, 
but it is in it that any danger lies, never in light 
and simple work, adapted to the pupil's present 
strength, and done under the teacher's eye, or in 
heavier work after he has been trained gradually 
up to it. Now, when a fortnight has gone by, use 
a little heavier weights; stay at the work without 



112 HOW TO GET STRONG-, ETC. 

weights a little longer, or draw the pulley-weight 
a few more strokes daily, never forgetting to hold 
the head and neck erect. 

Will dumb-bells and weight-boxes be necessary? 
Yes, or their equivalents. If the former cannot be 
had, flat-irons or cobble-stones of the same weight 
will do pretty well, and sand-bags can be used in 
the weight -boxes when pear-shaped weights or 
packed-boxes are scarce. It is a very small mat- 
ter to supply a school with light dumb-bells, when 
they cost but five cents a pound, and when, if nec- 
essary to retrench, a quarter as many pairs of them 
as there are scholars will suffice. As will be shown 
in a later chapter, there is a very wide variety of 
exercises which could be practised in a school- 
room, which do not need one cent's worth of appa- 
ratus. They simply need to be known, and then 
faithfully practised, and most gratifying results 
are sure. In large cities it would be well to have 
all the teachers instructed by a competent master 
in the various exercises which they could so readily 
teach in school, and which would prove so beneficial 
to the scholars. London is already ahead of us in 
this direction. Harper's Weekly of February 8th, 
1879, says: "The London School Board has ap- 
pointed Miss Lofving, at a salary of fifteen hun- 
dred dollars a year, as superintendent of ' physical 
education' in the girls' schools." 



THE SCHOOL AND PHYSICAL CULTURE. 113 

A man like Dr. Sargent, of the Fifth Avenue 
Gymnasium, in New York, could easily, in a few 
half -hour lessons, instruct the two thousand or 
more teachers of the public schools of that city in 
the simpler, and yet very valuable exercises. They 
would be then well qualified, in turn, to instruct 
all the pupils, and to so grade their exercises as 
to adapt the work to all. The ordinary gymnastic 
instructor, as years have shown, in most of our 
gymnasiums, lets the pupil do about as he has a 
mind to. This would be just about as effective as 
if the same rule was followed out in mental train- 
ing. But men like Sargent, strict disciplinarians, 
trained physicians, and practical gymnasts as well, 
are far too scarce among us, and his is a field 
which many of our young physicians might enter 
with prospects of doing very great good in the 
community in which they live. 

Let the school commissioners of each State look 
to this matter at once. Let them insist that each 
teacher shall forthwith obtain the knowledge requi- 
site to properly instruct and bring forward every 
pupil in his or her class. A knowledge should be 
had of the exact kind and amount of work requi- 
site for a class of a certain age. Let some suitable 
person or persons be appointed in the cities to su- 
pervise this branch of education, and see that the 
teachers are thoroughly qualified. Let the scholar 

8 



114 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

understand that his body can be trained exactly as 
well as his mind, and that the sound health of both 
is intimately connected with having it so trained. 
Let the school-hours be so arranged that ten min- 
utes in the middle of the morning session, and 
again in the afternoon, shall be allotted to this 
branch. See what Maclaren* did for the Radley 
and Magdalen boys in one hour a week! see what 
Sargentf did in our country for two hundred youth 
in two hours a week, and with wooden dumb- 
bells, very light clubs, and a few pulley -weights 
at that ! Let people at once and forever get rid 
of the notion that this exercise is a mere play- 
spell, or that it is only good to make athletes or 
acrobats. It is as much a branch of education as 
any taught in our schools to-day; and who will 
question that, if such uniform and splendid prog- 
ress was made in each school as was made in the 
cases just cited, and in different instances, with at 
first such unpromising pupils, the brief twenty min- 
utes daily so spent would be as well spent and as 
valuable to each pupil as any other twenty or thir- 
ty minutes of his day? It should no more be al- 
lowed to interfere w T ith their usual play than any 
other branch is. It is a matter of progress and 
development, in a way highly important to every 



* 



See page 140. t See pages 291 , 292. 



THE SCHOOL AND PHYSICAL CULTURE. 115 

scholar, and should be so treated, and the child's 
play-hours should be in no way curtailed to accom- 
plish it. 

Superintendent Philbrick, of the Boston schools, 
is a man of long experience in most matters con- 
nected with schools, their management, and wants. 
This gentlemen has lately received, at the Paris Ex- 
position, high honor for his accomplishments in this 
direction. But are the schools of Boston to-day 
taking the care they ought to and could so easily 
take to make the children healthy and vigorous ? 
Let Mr. Philbrick set about introducing into every 
public school in that city such a system of physical 
education as shall effect, for example, simply what 
Maclaren effected, what Sargent effected and is 
now effecting, and no more. Let him stick to his 
task as persistently, if need be, as Stanley stayed 
at his infinitely harder one, until every boy or girl 
who is graduated from a Boston school has a 
strong, shapely, and healthy body, and knows what 
did much to make it so, and what will keep it so. 
Then the east wind may blow over that good city, 
even until no gilding remains on the State-house 
dome, and the formerly w r eak throats and lungs 
will not mind it any more than they do the gen- 
tlest southern zephyr ; Mr. Philbrick can feel, when 
he looks over his life's work, that he has accom- 
plished a thing for the scholars of his charge, and 



116 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

introduced a public benefit, which will redound to 
his credit as long as the city stands. There is no 
more need of Americans having poor legs than 
Englishmen. There is no more need of a boy's 
chest remaining a slim and half-built affair at the 
Brimmer School, or the Boston Latin School, than 
there was at Radley. 

When the good work is commenced, when other 
cities begin to send their delegates and committees 
to watch methods, progress, and results, to take 
steps to secure the same benefits for their own 
schools, then the admirable example Boston has 
set in leading off in this direction will be better 
understood. Then all will wonder why so simple, 
so sensible, so effective a course, conducive to pres- 
ent and future health and well-being, had not been 
thought of and been carried out long ago. 



WHAT A GYMNASIUM MIGHT BE AND DO. 117 



CHAPTER VIII. 

WHAT A GYMNASIUM MIGHT BE AND DO. 

Few colleges of any pretension have not some 
sort of a gymnasium — indeed, hold it out to par- 
ents as one of the attractions. There is a building, 
and it has apparatus in it. The former often costs 
twice as much as needs be ; the latter may be well 
made, and well suited to its purpose, or may not — 
in fact, more frequently is not. Instead of having 
apparatus graded, so as to have some for the slim 
and weak, some for the stout and broad, too often 
one pair of parallel bars or one size of rowing- 
weight must suffice for all. Frequently the ap- 
paratus getting loose, or worn, or out of repair, re- 
mains so. The director is little more than a jan- 
itor, and is so regarded. In many instances he 
does so little as to render this opinion a just one. 
Imperfect ventilation, and in winter lack of proper 
warmth, help to make it unattractive. The newly- 
arrived Freshman is generally run down and thin 
from overwork in preparing himself for college. 
Many a time, when much work was telling on him, 



118 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC 



he consoled himself with the thought that in the 
college-gymnasium, with his fellow-students about 
him all eagerly at work, he would soon pick up the 
strength he had lost, and perhaps come to be, in 
time, as strong as this or that fellow, a few years 
his senior, the fame of whose athletic exploits was 
more than local. 

As a rule, the American student is not very 
strong on entering college. President Eliot, of 
Harvard, said, a few years ago, of a majority of 
those coming into that university, for instance, that 
they had "undeveloped muscles, a bad carriage, 
and an impaired digestion, without skill in out- 
of-door games, and unable to ride, row, swim, or 
shoot." 

The student is usually inerect, and really needs 
"setting up" quite as much as the newly-arrived 
"pleb" at West Point. But does he get it? No. 
If coming from good stock, stronger than the aver- 
age, and it happens to be a year when there is 
much interest in athletics, the rowing-men or the 
base-ball or foot-ball fellows will be after him. If 
they capture him, he will get plenty of work- — more 
than enough — but in one single rut. If he knows 
something of the allurements of these sports, and 
desires to steer clear of them and be a reading 
man, still not to neglect his body, he is at a loss 
how to go to work. He finds a house full of ap- 



WHAT A GYMNASIUM MIGHT BE AND DO. 119 

paratus, and does not know how to use it. He sees 
the boating and ball men hard at it, but on their 
hobbies, and looks about for something else to do. 
He finds no other class of fellows working with 
any vim, save those eager to show well as gym- 
nasts. He falls in with these, takes nearly as 
much work the first day as they do, which is ten 
times too much for him, quite out of condition as 
he is. He becomes sore all over for two or three 
days, has no special ambition, after all, to be a 
gymnast, and, ten to one, throws up the whole 
business disgusted. 

In the warmer months even the oarsmen and 
ball-players work out-of-doors, and, except a little 
brush by the new-comers during the first month or 
so, he finds the place deserted. At the start there 
was nobody to receive him, place him, and to en- 
courage and invite him on. If naturally persist- 
ent, and he sticks to it awhile, he gropes about in 
a desultory way, now trying this and now that, un- 
til, neither increasing in size nor strength so fast 
as he had expected, he prefers to spend his spare 
hours in more attractive fields, and so drops the 
gymnasium, as many have done before him. 

He has no more given it a fair trial than he 
would have his chemistry had he treated it in the 
same way. It is not his fault, for he knew no 
better. The whole method of bringing up most 



120 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

American boys does almost nothing to fit the aver- 
age boy for even the simpler work of the gymna- 
sium, let alone its more advanced steps. Often, 
in the university gymnasium, you will see fellows 
actually so weak in the arms that they can hardly 
get up in the parallel bars and rest their weight 
on their hands alone, much less go through them 
clear to the other end. It is a pretty suggestive 
commentary on the way these establishments are 
conducted that the men so lamentably deficient 
are by no means all from the new-comers, but often 
those who have nearly completed their course. 

Yet here is a school which, rightly used, would 
do the average student more good, and would fit 
him better for his life's duties, than any other one 
branch in the whole curriculum. 

But a few years since a son of a lawyer of na- 
tional reputation, a highly gifted youth, made a 
most brilliant record at one of our best known col- 
leges. All who knew him conceded him a distin- 
guished future; and yet he was hardly well out 
of college when he took away his life. Had there 
been a reasonable, sensible allowance of daily 
muscular work, had the overtaxed brain been let 
rest awhile, and vigor cultivated in other direc- 
tions, the rank, the general average, might have 
been a trifle lower, but a most efficient man saved 
for a long and honorable life. And yet every col- 



WHAT A GYMNASIUM MIGHT BE AND DO. 121 

lege has men who are practically following this 
one's plan, overworking their brains, cutting off 
both ends of the night, forcing their mental pace, 
till even the casual observer sees that they cannot 
stand it long, and must break down before their 
real life's race is well begun. Now, however ex- 
ceptional may be the talents such a man has, does 
not his course show either dense ignorance of how 
to take care of himself, or a lack of something 
which would be worth far more than brilliant tal- 
ents — namely, common-sense ? 

Ought there not to be some department in a col- 
lege designed to bring round mental development, 
where the authorities would step in and prevent 
this suicidal course ? Oh, but there are such and 
such lectures on health. Yes, and in most in- 
stances you might as well try and teach a boy to 
write by merely talking to him, taking care all the 
time that he have no pen or pencil in his hand. 
It is a matter of surprise that college faculties are 
not more alive to the defects of the gymnasium con- 
ducted right under their very eyes. In every other 
branch they require a definite and specific progress 
during a given time, an ability to pass successful- 
ly periodical examinations which shall show that 
progress, and, if the pupil fails, it tells on his gen- 
eral standing, and is an element which determines 
whether he is to remain in college. 



122 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

But in the gymnasium there is nothing of the 
sort, and in many cases the young man need not 
step into it once during the four years unless he 
likes. This state of things is partly accounted for 
by the fact that too many of the professors in our 
colleges do not know anything about a gymnasi- 
um, and what it can do for a man. Indeed, often, 
if from practical experience they were better up 
in this knowledge, it would beneficially affect the 
reputation of their college as a live institution. 

Nor is the director, with very few exceptions, the 
right sort of man for his place. Either the facul- 
ty have no conception what they do need here, or 
they effectually drive off the man they ought to 
have by starving him. Professors' salaries are gen- 
erally small enough, but the director of the gym- 
nasium seldom gets half so much as the poorest 
paid of his brother professors. Indeed, the latter 
do not regard him as an equal at all, and until 
they do so with good reason, there is little prospect 
of improvement in this direction. A doctor as ill 
up to his work as the average college gymnasium 
director would soon be without a patient. 

Nor are the gymnasiums of our cities and towns 
much better off. New York city to-day, with one 
or two exceptions, is utterly without a gymnasium 
worthy of her. Two of the best known are situ- 
ated, one far below the street level, the other di- 



WHAT A GYMNASIUM MIGHT BE AND DO. 123 

rectly over a stable, and formerly at least, if not 
still, a very redolent stable at that. There is gen- 
erally plenty of apparatus, most of which is good 
enough ; but the boy or man who comes to use it 
finds at once the same things wanting as does the 
student in the college gymnasium. If he can al- 
ready raise a heavy dumb-bell over his head with 
his right hand,, he may, and often does, go on in- 
creasing his power in this single direction, but in 
years actually gains little or no size or strength 
in his other arm, his legs, or any other part of his 
body. No one stops him, or even gives him an idea 
of the folly of his course ; indeed, no one has the 
power to do so. Ordinarily the place is kept by a 
man simply to make a living. This secured, his 
ambition dies. He may be a boxer or an acrobat, 
or even a fair general gymnast. With one or two 
exceptions, we have yet to hear of an instance where 
the instructor has either devised a plan of class ex- 
ercise which has proved attractive, or in a given 
time has brought about a decided increase in size 
and strength to a majority of his pupils in a spe- 
cific and needed direction. 

College rowing and base - ball, while often un- 
questionably benefiting those who took part in 
them, have been found to work detrimentally, but 
in a way, as will be shown in a moment, certainly 
not expected by the public. The colleges in this 



124 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



country which pay most attention to rowing are 
Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and Columbia. It is well 
known that in both Oxford and Cambridge uni- 
versities the men who row are numbered by hun- 
dreds ; that over twenty eight-oared crews alone, to 
say nothing of other classes, are sometimes on the 
river at once, and that the problem for the " 5 Yar- 
sity " captain is not, as here, to find eight men all 
fitted for places in the boat, but, out of many fit, 
to tell which to take. For years the American 
press has reported the performances of our student 
oarsmen even oftener and more fully than the Eng- 
lish non-sporting papers those of their own oars- 
men, so that they have filled a larger space in the 
public eye. Men naturally thought that the inter- 
est among the students themselves was well-nigh 
universal, and many fathers expressed misgivings 
about sending sons to institutions where the reg- 
ular curriculum seemed a secondary matter, and 
performance in athletic contests the chief thing. 

Yet, strange as it may seem, this whole idea is 
an egregious mistake. Most of the students do 
take some interest in these contests, but it goes no 
farther than talking somewhat about them, and 
viewing them when they come off, and perhaps 
betting the amount of their term -bills on them. 
The number who actually take part, either in the 
racing or the ball matches, or in trying for a 



WHAT A GYMNASIUM MIGHT BE AND DO. 125 

chance in them, is ridiculously small. Dr. Sar- 
gent says that at Yale College, where he has been 
for six years instructor in physical culture, they 
actually do not exceed three per cent, of the whole 
number of students, while five per cent, will in- 
clude every man in college who takes active work 
at the gymnasium, on the river, or the ball-field ! 
Any one familiar with American college athletics 
knows that the proportion of students who either 
play ball or row is probably, taking year and year 
together, about as great at Yale as anywhere in 
the country. 

Surprising as these figures are, they prove con- 
clusively that the present system of college athlet- 
ics, so far as it assumes to benefit the students at 
large, or even a tithe of them, is an utter failure. 
Here, then, instead of the supposed advance in the 
general physical culture over that of years ago, 
there has been almost no advance. There are a 
few men who devote much time and attention to 
severe athletics, more than there is any need of, 
and become skilled and famous at them, but the 
great majority do little or nothing. Better ideas 
they doubtless have of what is and what is not 
creditable performance among the athletes, and also 
as to the progress that can be made in muscular 
development by direct and steady work. But that 
progress and that work they have no share in. 



126 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

The very natural result folio ws, that the great ma- 
jority of students, at graduation, average no better 
in size, strength, health, vigor, endurance, or stam- 
ina than those of a generation ago, or are any fit- 
ter to stand successfully the wear and tear of their 
life's work. Indeed, it is very doubtful if they are 
physically as well fitted for what is before them as 
the previous generation were, for in the latter case 
probably more came from farms and homes where 
much manual labor was necessary, while now a 
greater fraction are from the cities, or are the sons 
of parents whose occupation is mainly sedentary. 
Yet in that day gymnasiums at the colleges were 
almost unknown, while now they are general. 

Does the gymnasium, then, pay ? Yes, like a 
bath-tub — if used, and used sensibly; but if not, 
not. Then, as it is used so little, is it worth hav- 
ing? 

At Harvard, for instance, to-day there is in proc- 
ess of erection, at great expense, a gymnasium 
which, when finished, will doubtless be the most 
costly building of the sort in this country, and very 
possibly the best appointed as well. But unless 
there is introduced some sensible and vigorous sys- 
tem of bringing the students regularly there, and 
working them while they are there, it will almost 
surely prove a failure, and accomplish little or no 
more good than did the old one. Now, suppose, 



WHAT A GYMNASIUM MIGHT BE AND DO. 127 

first that this new institution is to be carried on 
with no more vigor or good sense than its predeces- 
sors. Next, suppose that, opposite this expensive 
affair, on some neighboring field, there were built 
a commodious shed, costing perhaps one -tenth as 
much as its more pretentious rival, strongly framed, 
weather-tight, sensibly arranged, well lit, and com- 
fortably warmed, large enough, too, to admit, at 
the edge of the main room, of a running track of 
say twenty laps to the mile. In an L adjoining 
let there be ample and well -ventilated dressing- 
rooms, a locker for each student, and sufficient 
washing facilities to meet the demand. Suppose 
the ordinary sorts of apparatus were there, but 
made with great care, and of the proportions skill- 
ed gymnasts have found most suitable. Let there 
be, besides, all newly - invented appliances which 
have proved valuable, such as the twenty or more 
Dr. Sargent has introduced, and any other good 
ones as well. Suppose, too, that heavy weights for 
lifting, and all heavy clubs and dumb-bells, were 
carefully excluded. 

On the walls there should be casts and draw- 
ings, showing well-proportioned and well-developed 
arms, legs, and trunks, and a brief statement with 
each of the various measurements and proportions, 
and the ages of the men from whom they were 
taken, and, if possible, the sort and amount of work 



128 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



done by each in their progress. These need by 
no means be all modern. Greece and Rome, Troy 
and Pompeii, could furnish their quota. 

Suppose the director at once, on the joining of a 
pupil, recorded, on a page set apart specially in his 
register, the age, height, general physical charac- 
teristics, weight, girth of calf, thigh, hips, waist, 
lower chest, upper chest — both at rest and inflated 
— neck, upper arm — extended and drawn up — and 
the forearm, hand, and wrist, taking care to note 
the time of day the measurements were made, and 
also obtaining a photograph of the man as he then 
appeared in exercising costume. Suppose that, out- 
side of the ordinary requirements as to method, 
decorum, order of using apparatus, and so on, the 
director refused to take any pupil who would not 
expressly agree to two things: first, to be at the 
gymnasium, stripped and ready for work, exactly 
at such a moment, four days out of the seven ; sec- 
ond, to obey implicitly the director's orders, both 
as to what work he should do, and w T hat omit. 

Suppose the director's training had been such 
that he could tell at once, both from the looks and 
measurements of the man, where he w T as physically 
lacking, and that he so arranged his classes that 
all whose left hands were weaker than their right 
had left-handed work only until they w T ere equal- 
ized up; that weak thighs, calves, abdominal mus- 



WHAT A GYMNASIUM MIGHT BE AND DO. 129 

cles, chests, and backs had special work given 
them, bringing the desired parts directly into play, 
lightly as each needed at first, and then gradually 
working upward, the stronger parts, meanwhile, be- 
ing at rest. Suppose this were continued until, at 
the end of the year, or often long before it, it is 
found that one arm is now as strong as the other, 
that the gain in girth at almost every measurement 
is nearly or all of an inch, and at some even two 
or more inches. 

Suppose a series of exercises, aimed directly to 
enlarge and strengthen the respiratory power, were 
given to all, and every one, also, had a few min- 
utes each day of "setting up," and other work 
aimed not so much to add size and strength as to 
make the crooked straight, to point out and insist 
on a proper carriage of the head, the neck, the 
shoulders, the arms, the whole trunk, and the knees, 
and to show each pupil what length of step best 
suited him, and which he ought to take. 

Suppose that the director showed at once that 
he not only knew what to do all through, but how 
to do it, and so promptly won the confidence of 
those he sought to instruct and benefit. 

Is there any question in which of these two in- 
stitutions the young man would make the most de- 
sirable progress? The first building and apparatus 
might be grand, fitted up with nearly all that could 

9 



130 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

be desired, but the gymnasium lacked a master- 
head who should show its possibilities. Gymna- 
sium and apparatus were like an engine without 
steam. The second building was not of much ac- 
count as a building, but quite all that was needed 
for the real end in view. The London Rowing- 
club boat-houses were for a long time mere sheds, 
not to be named in the same dav with the taste- 
f ul stone boat-houses along the Schuylkill, for in- 
stance ; but those same plain sheds have for many 
years turned out amateur oarsmen who could row 
down any in the world. 

And what a benefit a gymnasium conducted on 
some plan similar to that above suggested would 
be to any college or university ! And yet almost 
any college, even of limited means, could afford it. 
Change the plan a little, and make the attendance 
by all students just as it is in other branches — just 
as it is at West Point in horseback practice — com- 
pulsory. Give the director a salary adequate to 
secure a first-class man in his calling — not merely 
an accomplished gymnast, acrobat, boxer, or fencer, 
but an educated physician, the peer of any of his 
brother-members of the faculty, fond of his calling, 
fond of the field before him, thoroughly acquaint- 
ed with the plainer kinds of gymnastics and of ac- 
robatic work, and a good boxer, an instructor espe- 
cially quick in detecting the physical defects in his 



WHAT A GYMNASIUM MIGHT BE AND DO. 131 

pupil, in knowing what exercise will cure them, 
zealous in interesting him, in encouraging him on, 
what incalculable good he could do ! Every stu- 
dent in that college would practically have to be 
made over. Long before the four years, or even 
one of them, were through, that instructor would 
have made all the men erect (as is daily being done 
with the West Pointer). But his pupils, instead 
of being like the latter, developed simply in those 
muscles which his business called into play, would 
each be well developed all over, would each be up 
to what a well-built man of his years and size 
ought to be in the way of strength, and skill, and 
staying powers, and — a most important thing — 
would know what he could do, and what he could 
not ; and so would not, as is now every day the 
case with many, attempt physical efforts long be- 
fore he was fitted for them. 

If he wanted to go into racing, the director 
would be his best friend, and would point out to 
him that the only safe way to get one's heart and 
lungs used to the violent action which they must 
undergo in racing, especially after the racer gets 
tired, would be by gradually increasing his speed 
from slow up to the desired pace, instead of, as too 
often happens, getting up to racing pace before he 
is half fit for it. 

But he would also show him how one-sided it 



182 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

would make him, developing some parts, and let- 
ting others remain idle and fall behind in develop- 
ment, and — more important still — how brief and 
ephemeral was the fame which he was working 
for, and the risks of overdoing which it entailed. 

Let one college in this land graduate each year a 
class of which every man has an erect carriage and 
mien, has the legs and arms, the back and chest, 
not of a Hercules, not of a prize racer or tighter, 
but of a hale, comely, strong, and well-proportion- 
ed man, and see how well it would pay. Bear in 
mind that an hour a day put in in the right way 
and at the right work will effect all this in far less 
time than four years of trying. The hardest-read- 
ing man can readily spare the time for it, especial- 
ly if he must. What! would it take him from the 
thin, cadaverous fellow he too often is, and do all 
that for him ? Beyond all doubt it would. Such 
vigorous work would soon sharpen his appetite, and 
lie would find that, eat all he liked, he could digest 
it promptly, and would feel all the better for his 
generous living. The generous living has fed mus- 
cles now vigorously used ; they have been enlarged 
and strengthened: the legs, which never used to try 
to jump a cubit high, even, once in the whole year, 
now carry their owner safely over a four-rail fence, 
and perhaps another rail, or even two of them. 
The lungs, which were scarcely half expanded, 



WHAT A GYMNASIUM MIGHT BE AND DO. 133 

now have every air-cell thoroughly filled for at 
least one entire hour daily — an excellent thing for 
weak lungs. Correct positions of standing, sitting, 
walking, and running being now well known and 
understood, the lungs get more air into them than 
formerly, even when their owner is at rest. An- 
other effect of it all is shown in a decidedly more 
vigorous circulation, and the consequent exhilara- 
tion and buoyancy of spirits, no matter whether 
the work in hand is mental or physical. 

But will not this hour's work dull him mentally? 
It may be proper to digress for a moment and see 
if it will. Of men who have done just this kind 
and amount of work, this work aimed at every 
part of the body, we find no record, simply be- 
cause, as we have already shown, considerable as 
the increased interest is in physical culture and 
development, this plan of reaching all the parts 
and being just to all, has scarcely been tried. But 
abundant proof that some physical exercise will 
not dull the man, but even brighten him, can be 
had without difficulty. A moment's reflection will 
show that a mind ever on the stretch must, like a 
bow so kept, be the worse for it, and that the strain 
must be occasionally slacked. There are two ways 
of slacking it. Both the physician and experience 
tell us that nothing rests a tired brain like sensi- 
ble, physical exercise, except, of course, sleep. 



134 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

t 

"When in active use," says Mitchell, "the think- 
ing organs become full of blood, and, as Dr. Lom- 
bard has shown, rise in temperature, while the feet 
and hands become cold. Nature meant that for 
their work they should be, in the first place, sup- 
plied with food ; next, that they should have certain 
intervals of rest to rid themselves of the excess of 
blood accumulated during their periods of activity; 
and this is to be done by sleep, and also by bring- 
ing into play the physical machinery of the body, 
such as the muscles — that is to say, by exercise 
which flushes the parts engaged in it, and so de- 
pletes the brain."* 

Here, then, some physical exercise will rest his 
brain, and fit it for more and better work. But 
this does not necessarily imply so much as is call- 
ed for in the hour. Happily, however, there is no 
lack of instances where work, quite as vigorous, 
though not as well directed, has accompanied men- 
tal w r ork of a very high order, and to all appear- 
ances has been a help rather than a hinderance. 
Instead of one hour a day, Napoleon for years was 
in the saddle several hours almost daily, but we 
never heard that it closed his mind. Charles 
O'Conor, always fond of long walks, is good at 
them to-day, and noticeably erect and quick of 

* "Wear and Tear," p. 54. 



WHAT A GYMNASIUM MIGHT BE AND DO. 135 

movement, though for weeks he once lay at death's 
door, and though he was born in 1804. James 
Russell Lowell, sturdy, broad, and ruddy, is said 
to never ride when lie can walk, and he is nearly 
sixty. Gladstone's reputation as an axeman among 
the Hawarden oaks has reached our shores. In- 
deed, it is doubtful if there are many better fellers 
of his age in Europe, and he was born in 1809. 
Mr. M. H. Beebee, the present senior tutor at Cam- 
bridge University in England, who rowed at num- 
ber two in the " 'Varsity " eight against Oxford in 
'65, not only took the very highest university hon- 
or — a double-first — but a much higher double-first 
than even Gladstone had taken years before. The 
fencing, duelling, and hard riding of Bismarck's 
youth do not seem to have perceptibly dimmed his 
intellect, or to have unfitted it for enormous and 
very important work in later life. 

And while the in-door work equalizes the 
strength, and takes care of the arms and chest, the 
hour's "constitutional" daily out-of-doors has an 
especial advantage, in that it insures at least that 
much out-of-door life and air. Dr. Mitchell says, 
"When exposure to out-of-door p,ir is associated 
with a fair share of physical exertion, it is an im- 
mense safeguard against the ills of anxiety and too 
much brain-work. I presume that very few of our 
generals could have gone through with their terri- 



136 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

ble task if it had not been that they lived in the 
open air and exercised freely. For these reasons 
I do not doubt that the effects of our great con- 
test were far more severely felt by the Secretary 
of War and the late President than by Grant or 
Sherman." 

A recent, interesting, and wonderfully apt in- 
stance, more so than any of these, one going 
straight to the point, and as nearly as possible the 
equivalent of what we propose to urge later on all 
sedentary men, one where the proof comes direct- 
ly from the gentleman's own pen, is that of the 
late Mr. Bryant, whose letter on the subject, writ- 
ten to a friend in 1871, will be found on page 169. 
With characteristic sturdiness, with no one to aid 
or guide him, he hit on a plan of work to be done, 
partly in his little home-gymnasium, and partly on 
the road, and stuck faithfully to it till well over 
fourscore, and at eighty-two he told the writer that 
he continued his exercise simply because it paid. 
His aim was to keep all his machinery in working 
order, and to prolong his life; and when he did die, 
at eighty -four, it was not from old age, not because 
his functions were worn out. With his usual vigor 
and energy when any writing was to be done, he 
had thrown himself into his work of preparing his 
address at the Mazzini celebration, till, tired and 
exhausted, the undue exposure to the hot sun and 



WHAT A GYMNASIUM MIGHT BE AND DO. 137 

the resulting fall were too much for him, and these 
were what took him away. 

But the plan here suggested will not only cover 
all he did, but more. Bryant does not seem to 
have cared for erectness, nor for a harmonious 
development of all the muscles. But had the 
amount of work he took been so directed, he might 
in youth have attained that harmony, and main- 
tained it through life, as Vanderbilt maintained 
his erectness. 

There need be little fear, then, that a right use 
of the gymnasium will overdo. No better safe- 
guard against that could be had than a wise di- 
rector, familiar with the capacities of his pupil, 
watching him daily, instilling sound principles, and 
giving him the very work he needs. Under such 
a tutor a young man who went to college, on re- 
ceiving his degree, would, if his moral and mental 
duties were attended to, be graduated, not with 
an educated mind alone, but an educated body as 
well ; not with merely a bright head, and a body 
and legs like a pair of tongs. If the history of 
brave, independent, earnest, pure men goes for 
anything, it will be found that as the body was 
healthy and strong, it has in many a pass in life 
directly aided moral culture and strength, and has 
kept the man from defiling that body which was 
meant to be kept sacred. 



138 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



CHAPTER IX. 

SOME RESULTS OF BRIEF SYSTEMATIC EXERCISE. 

In a country like ours, where the masses are so 
intelligent, where so much care is taken to secure 
what is called a good education, the ignorance as 
to what can be done to the body by a little system- 
atic physical education is simply marvellous. Few 
persons seem to be aware that any limb, or any 
part of it, can be developed from a state of weak- 
ness and deficiency to one of fulness, strength, and 
beauty, and that equal attention to all the limbs, 
and to the body as well, will work like result 
throughout. A man spends three or four weeks 
at the hay and grain liar vest, and is surprised at 
the increased grip of his hands, and the new power 
of arm and back. He tramps through forests, and 
paddles up streams and lakes after game, and re- 
turns wondering how three or four miles on a 
level sidewalk could ever have tired him. 

An acquaintance of ours, an active and skilled 
journalist, says that he once set out to saw twenty 
cords of wood. He was a slight, weak youth. He 
found he had not enough strength or wind to get 



SOME RESULTS OF SYSTEMATIC EXERCISE. 139 

through one cut of a log — that he had to constantly 
sit down and rest. People laughed at him, and at 
his thinking he could go through that mighty pile. 
But they did not know what was in him ; for, stick- 
ing gamely to his self-imposed task, he says that in 
a very few days he found his stay improving rap- 
idly, that he did not tire half so easily, and, more 
than that, that there began to come a feeling over 
him — a most welcome one — of new strength in his 
arms and across his chest ; and that what had at 
first looked almost an impossibility had now be- 
come very possible, and was before long accom- 
plished. Now, what he, by his manliness, found 
was fast doing so much for his arms and chest, 
was but a sample of what equally steady, system- 
atic work might have done for his whole body. 
Indeed, a later experience of this same gentleman 
will be in place here ; for at Dr. Sargent's gymna- 
sium in New York, in the winter of 1878-79, he, 
though a middle-aged man, increased the girth of 
his chest two inches mid Jive-eighths in six weeks ! 
and this working but one hour a day; and he 
found that he could not only do more work daily 
afterward at his profession, but better work as 
well. 

The youth who works daily in a given line at 
the gymnasium as much expects that, before the 
year is over, not only will the muscles used decid- 



140 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC 



edly increase in strength, but in size and shapeli- 
ness as well, as he does that the year's reading will 
improve his mind, or a year's labor bring him his 
salary. It is an every -day expression with him 
that such a fellow "got his arm up to" fifteen, or 
his chest to forty-odd inches, and so on. He sees 
nothing singular in this. He knows this one, who 
in a short time put half an inch on his forearm, or 
an inch ; that one, whose thigh, or chest, or waist, 
or calf made equal progress. Group and classify 
these gains in many cases, and note the amount of 
work and the time taken in each, and soon one can 
tell pretty well what can be done in this direction. 
Few of our gymnasiums are so kept that their rec- 
ords will aid much in this inquiry, simply because 
the instructor either has no conception of the field 
before him, or, if he has, for some reason fails to 
improve the opportunity. 

Look at what Maclaren effected (as described by 
him in his admirable " Physical Education"), not 
with here and there an isolated case, but with both 
boys and men turned in on him by the hundred, 
and in all stages of imperfect development! Take 
it first among the boys. Under systematic exercise, 

W , a boy at Radley College, ten years old in 

June, 1861, had, seven years later, increased in 
height from 4 feet 6f inches to 5 feet lOf inches, 
or a gain of 16 inches in all ; in weight from 66 



SOME RESULTS OF SYSTEMATIC EXERCISE. 141 

pounds — light weight for a ten-year-old boy — to 
156 pounds ; far heavier than most boys at seven- 
teen; showing an advance of 90 pounds. His 
forearm went from 7\ to 11 £ inches — very large 
for a boy of seventeen, and decidedly above the 
average of that of most men ; his upper arm from 
7\ inches to 13f — also far above the average at 
that age; while his chest had actually increased 
in girth from 26 inches — which was almost slen- 
der, even for a ten-year-old — to 39^ inches, which 
is all of two inches larger than the average man's. 

His description of this boy was : " Height above 
average ; other measurements average. From com- 
mencement, growth rapid, and sustained with reg- 
ular and uniform development. The whole frame 
advancing to great physical power." 

Another boy, H , starting in June, 1860, 

when ten years old, 4 feet 6£ inches high, and 
weighing 73 pounds — much heavier than the oth- 
er at the start — in eight years gained 13J inches, 
making him 5 feet 7£ inches — of medium height 
for that age. He gained 71 pounds in the eight 
years, and at 144 pounds was better built than 

W at 156 ; for, though his forearm, starting 

at 8 inches, had become 11^, a quarter of an inch 

less than W 's, yet his upper arm had gone 

from 8f to 13^ inches, or one-eighth of an inch 
larger, while his chest rose from 284- to 39 inches 



142 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

— within half an inch of the other's, though the 
latter was 3 inches taller. 

He is described : " Height slightly above aver- 
age ; other measurements considerably above aver- 
age. From commencement, growth and develop- 
7?ient regular and continuous. The ivhole frame 
perfectly developed for this period of life? 

S 's case is far more remarkable. He was 

evidently very small and undersized. "Height 
and all other measurements greatly below average; 
the whole frame stunted and dwarfish. Advance- 
ment at first slight, and very irregular. After- 
ward rapid, and comparatively regular." 

He only gained in height three-quarters of an 

inch from thirteen to fourteen, where W had 

gained 3f inches, and H 3-J inches. Yet, from 

fifteen to sixteen, where W ■ only went ahead 

half an inch, and H five-eighths of an inch, 

S actually gained 4 inches, which must have 

been most gratifying. His weight changes were 
even more noticeable. From twelve to fifteen 

W gained 58 pounds, and H 39, while 

all S could show was 12. But from fifteen 

to sixteen see how he caught up ! Where W 

made 11 pounds, and H 10, S made 22. 

Where W 's chest went up 1 inch, and H 's 

1|- inches, S 's went up 3 inches. 

Now, how long did these boys work ? As Mac- 
laren says, "Just one hour per week!" 



SOME RESULTS OF SYSTEMATIC EXERCISE. 143 

What parent believes that any hour in that 
week was better spent — better for the comfort, for 
the welfare of the boy, or better in fitting him for 
future usefulness — or what nearly so well ? Most 
boys waste that much time nearly every day. 

Look, too, at the benefit to the boy in all his 
after-life. Indeed, does not this hour a week, in 
some instances, insure an after-life, and snatch not 
a few from an early grave ? Had every slim, thin- 
chested man in America, and every slim, thin- 
chested boy who never lived to be a man, spent an 
hour weekly under such tutoring, from the age of 
ten to eighteen, would not the benefit to our land 
in working-power, in vigor and force, and comfort 
as well, have been incalculable ? And had it, in- 
stead of one hour a week, been two or three, or 
even an hour a day, might not the results have 
been even more gratifying? 

Professor Maclaren may well congratulate him- 
self on such good results among the boys. But 
what has he done with men ? Some years ago 
twelve non-commissioned officers, selected from all 
branches of the service, were sent to him to qual- 
ify as instructors for the British army. He says: 

"They ranged between nineteen and twenty- 
nine years of age, between five feet five inches 
and six feet in height, between nine stone two 
[128] pounds and twelve stone six [174] pounds 



144 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



in weight, and had seen from ten to twelve years 5 
service." 

He carefully registered the measurements of 
each at the start, and at different times through- 
out their progress. He says : 

"The muscular additions to the arms and shoul- 
ders, and the expansion of the chest, were so great 
as to have absolutely a ludicrous and embarrassing 
result, for, before the fourth month, several of the 
men could not get into their uniforms, jackets, and 
tunics, without assistance, and when they had got 
them on they could not get them to meet down 
the middle by a hand's-breadth. In a month more 
they could not get into them at all, and new cloth- 
ing had to be procured, pending the arrival of 
which the men had to go to and from the gym- 
nasium in their great -coats. One of these men 
gained five inches in actual girth of chest." 

And he well adds : " Now who shall tell the 
value of these five inches of chest, five inches of 
additional space for the heart and lungs to work 
in 2" Hardly five inches more of heart and lung 
room, though part of the gain must have been of 
course from the enlargement of the muscles on 
the side of the chest. 

He also hit upon another plan of showing the 
change ; for he says he had them " photographed, 
stripped to the waist, both at first and when the 



SOME RESULTS OF SYSTEMATIC EXERCISE. 145 

four months were over, and the change even in 
these portraits was very distinct, and most notably 
in the youngest, who was nineteen, for, besides the 
acquisition of muscle, there was in his case " a re- 
adjustment and expansion of the osseous frame- 
work upon which the muscles are distributed." 
Now let us look a little at the measurements and 
the actual changes wrought. 

In the first place, this last instance settles con- 
clusively one matter most important to flat-chest- 
ed youth, namely, whether the shape of the chest 
itself can be changed ; for here it was done, and 
in a very short time at that. Again, of these 
twelve men, in less than eight months every one 
gained perceptibly in height; indeed, there was an 
average gain of five-twelfths of an inch in height, 
though all, save one, were over twenty; and one 
man who gained half an inch was twenty-eight 
years old, while one twenty-six gained five-eighths 
of an inch ! (Most people suppose they can get no 
taller after twenty-one.) All increased decidedly 
in weight — the smallest gain being 5 pounds, the 
average 10 pounds; and one, and he twenty-eight, 
and a five-feet-eleven man, actually went up from 
149 pounds at the beginning, to 165 pounds in 
less than four months. It is not likely there was 
much fat about them, as they had so much vig- 
orous muscular exercise. Every man's chest en- 

10 



146 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

larged decidedly, the smallest gain being a whole 
inch in the four months, the average being 2-J 
inches, and one, though twenty-four years old, act- 
ually gaining 5 inches, or over an inch a month. 
Every upper arm increased 1 inch, most of them 
more than that, and one If inches. As the work 
was aimed to develop the whole body, there is lit- 
tle doubt that there was a proportional increase in 
the girth of hips and thigh and calf. 

Again, from the Royal Academy at Woolwich, 
Professor Maclaren took twenty-one youths whose 
average age was about eighteen, and in the brief 
period of four months and a half obtained an 
average advance of If pounds in weight, of 2^ 
inches in chest, and of 1 inch on the upper arm ; 
while one fellow, nineteen, and slender at that, 
gained 8 pounds in weight, and 5J inches about 
the chest ! Think what a difference that would 
make in the chest of any man, and a difference all 
in the right direction at that ! 

But the most satisfactory statistics offered were 
those of two articled pupils, one sixteen, the other 
twenty. In exactly one year's work the younger 
grew from 5 feet 2f inches in height to 5 feet 4f 
inches. He weighed 108 pounds on his sixteenth 
birthday ; on his seventeenth, 129 ! At the start 
his chest girthed 31 inches ; twelve months later, 
just 36 ! His forearm went up from 8 inches to 



SOME RESULTS OF SYSTEMATIC EXERCISE. 147 

10 inches, and his upper arm from 9J inches to 

iii. 

While the older gained but three -eighths of 
an inch in height, his weight went up from 153 
pounds to 161^, his forearm from 11J inches to 
12^ — an unusually large forearm for any man — 
and his upper arm from 11J inches to 13 J, while 
his chest actually made the astonishing stride of 
from 34 inches to 40. Not yet a large arm, save 
below the elbow, not yet a great chest ; five inch- 
es smaller, for instance, than Daniel Webster's, 
but greatly ahead of what they were a year ear- 
lier. 

There is no mystery about the Maclaren meth- 
od. Others might do it, perhaps not as well as he, 
for Maclaren's has been a very exceptional experi- 
ence ; still, well enough. 

Look what Sargent did with a Bowdoin student 
of nineteen, as shown in Appendix IV. In four 
hours' work a week this student's upper arm w r ent 
up If inches — just the same amount as did Mac- 
laren's student of twenty ; his chest went up from 
36f inches to 40, while that of Maclaren's man 
went from 34 to 40; but it should be borne in 
mind that 36f is harder to add 6 inches to in this 
kind of work than 34. In height the Englishman 
made three-eighths of an inch in the year, while 
the American made a whole inch. But the lat- 



148 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

ter also led easily in another direction, and a very 
important one too ; for, while the Briton, though 
but a year older, and of almost exactly the same 
height, gained but 8£ pounds in the year, the 
American made 15 ! His case is further valuable 
in that it shows, beside this advance above the 
waist, splendid increase in girth of hips, thigh, and 
calf as well. 

With us Americans fond of results, many of 
whose chests, by-the-way, do not increase a hair's- 
breadth in twenty years, better proof could not be 
sought than these figures offer of the value of a 
system of exercise which would work such rapid 
and decided changes. Had they all been witli 
boys, there might have been difficulty in separating 
what natural growth did, in the years they change 
so fast, from what was the result of development. 
But most of the cases cited are of men who had 
their growth, and had apparently, to a large extent, 
taken their form and set for life. To take a man 
twenty -eight years old, tall and rather slim, and 
whose height had probably not increased a single 
hairVbreadth in seven years, and in a few short 
months increase that height by a good half inch ; 
to take another, also twenty-eight, and suddenly, in 
the short period between September 11th and the 
30th of the next April, add sixteen pounds to his 
weight, and every pound of excellent stuff, was in 



SOME RESULTS OF SYSTEMATIC EXERCISE. 149 

itself no light thing; and there are thousands of 
men in our land to-day who would be delighted to 
make an equally great addition to their general 
size and strength, even in twice the period. To 
add five whole inches of chest, and nearly that 
much of lung and heart room and stomach room, 
and the consequent greater capacity for all the vi- 
tal organs, is a matter, to many men, of almost 
immeasurable value. Hear Dr. Morgan, in his 
English "University Oars," on this point: "An 
addition of three inches to the circumference of 
the chest implies that the lungs, instead of con- 
taining 250 cubic inches of air, as they did before 
their functional activity was exalted, are now ca- 
pable of receiving 300 cubic inches within their 
cells: the value of this augmented lung accom- 
modation will readily be admitted. Suppose, for 
example, that a man is attacked by inflammation 
of the lungs, by pleurisy, or some one of the va- 
ried forms of consumption, it may readily be con- 
ceived that, in such an emergency, the possession 
of enough lung tissue to admit forty or fifty addi- 
tional cubic inches of air will amply suffice to turn 
the scale on the side of recovery. It assists a 
patient successfully to tide over the critical stage 
of his disease." A man, then, of feeble lungs — 
the consumptive, for instance — taken early in 
hand, with the care which Maclaren or Sargent 



150 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

could so well give, gradually advanced in every di- 
rection, would suddenly find that his narrow, thin, 
and hollow chest had departed, had given way to 
one round, full, deep, and roomy ; that the fee- 
ble lungs and heart which, in cooler weather, 
were formerly hardly up to keeping the extrem- 
ities warm, are now strong and vigorous ; that 
the old tendency to lean his head forward when 
standing or walking, and to sit stooping, w r ith 
most of his vital organs cramped, has all gone. 
In their place had come an erect carriage, a firm 
tread, a strong, well-knit trunk, a manly voice, and 
a buoyancy and exhilaration of spirits worth un- 
told wealth. Who will say that all these have not 
assured him years of life? 

Well, but did all this increase of weight and 
size actually change the shape of the chest, for in- 
stance, and take the hollowness out of it ? That is 
exactly what it did; and Maclaren has a drawing 
of the same chest at the beginning and end of the 
year, showing an increase in the breadth, depth, 
and fulness of the lower chest which makes it 
seem almost impossible that it could have belong- 
ed to the same person. It w 7 ill be remembered 
that Maclaren claimed* that just such a readjust- 
ment of the osseous framework would result. Is 

* See page 145. 



SOME RESULTS OF SYSTEMATIC EXERCISE. 151 

not this, then, remaking a man? Instead of a 
cramped stomach, half-used lungs, a thin, scrawny, 
caved-in make, poor pipe-stems of legs, with arms 
to match, almost every one under forty, at least, 
can in a very few months, by means of a series of 
exercises, change those same slender legs, those 
puny arms, that flat chest, that slim neck, and met- 
amorphize their owner into a well-built, self-suffi- 
cient, vigorous man, titter a hundred times for se- 
vere in-door or out-door life, for the quiet plod- 
ding at the desk, or the stormy days and nights of 
the ocean or the bivouac. Who is going to do bet- 
ter brain-work : he whose brain is steadily fed with 
vigorous, rich blood, made by machinery kept con- 
stantly in excellent order, never cramped, aided 
daily by judicious and vigorous exercise, tending 
directly to rest and build him up? or he w r ho over- 
works his brain, gets it once clogged with blood, 
and, for many hours of the day, keeps it clogged, 
who does nothing to draw the blood out of his 
brain for awhile and put more of it in the mus- 
cles, who, perhaps, in the very midst of his work, 
rushes out, dashes down a full meal, and hurries 
back to work, and at once sets his brain to doing 
well-nigh its utmost ? 

Well, but is not the work which will effect such 
swift changes very severe, and so a hazardous one 
to attempt? That is just what it is not. Is there 



152 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

anything very formidable in wooden dumb-bells 
weighing only two and a half pounds each, or elubs 
of three and a half pounds, or pulley-weights of 
from ten to fifteen pounds ? or is any great danger 
likely to result from their use ? And yet they were 
Sargent's weapons with his Bowdoin two hun- 
dred.* Nothing in Maclaren's work, so far as he 
points out what it is, is nearly so dangerous as a 
sudden run to boat or train, taken by one all out 
of the way of running, perhaps who has never 
learned. There a heart unused to swift work is 
suddenly forced to beat at a tremendous rate, lungs 
ordinarily half-used are strained to their utmost, 
and all without one jot of preparation. 

But here, by the most careful and judicious sys- 
tem, the result of long study and much practical 
application, a person is taken, and, by work exactly 
suited to his weak state, is gradually hardened and 
strengthened. Then still more is given him to do, 
and so on, at the rate that is plainly seen to best 
suit him. Develop every man's body by such a 
method, teach every American school-boy the erect 
carriage of the West Pointer, and how many men 
among us would there be built after the pattern 
of the typical brother Jonathan, or of the thin- 
chested, round - shouldered, inerect, and generally 

* See Appendix II. 



SOME RESULTS OF SYSTEMATIC EXERCISE. 153 

weak make, so common in nearly every city, town, 
and village in our land ? 

Look, too, at the knowledge such a course brings 
of the workings of one's own body, of its general 
structure, of its possibilities ! What a lecture on 
the human body it must prove, and how it must 
fit the man to keep his strength up, and, if lost, to 
recover it ; for it has uniformly been found that a 
man once strong needs but little work daily to keep 
him so. A little reflection on facts like the fore- 
going must point strongly to the conclusion that 
the body — at least of any one not yet middle-aged 
— admits of a variety and degree of culture almost 
as great as could be desired, certainly sufficient 
to make reasonably sure of a great accession of 
strength and health to a person formerly weak, 
and that with but a little time given each day to 
the work. 



154 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



CHAPTER X. 

WORK FOR THE FLESHY, THE THIN, THE OLD. 

While the endeavor has been made to point out 
the value of plain and simple exercise — for, in a 
later chapter, particular work will be designated 
which, if followed systematically and persistently, 
will correct many physical defects, substituting 
good working health and vigor for weakness — the 
reply may be made, " Yes, these are well enough 
for the young and active, but they will not avail 
a fleshy person, or a slim one, or one well up in 
years." 

Let us see about this. Take, first, those burden- 
ed with flesh which seems to do them little or no 
good, and which is often a hinderance, dulling and 
slackening their energies, preventing them from 
doing much which they could, and which they be- 
lieve they would do with alacrity were they once 
freed from this unwelcome burden. There are 
some persons with whom the reduction of flesh be- 
comes a necessity. They have a certain physical 
task to perform, and they know they cannot have 
either the strength or the wind to get through with 



WORK FOR THE FLESHY, THE THIN, THE OLD. 155 

it creditably, unless they first rid themselves of con- 
siderable superfluous flesh. 

Take the man, for instance, who wants to walk 
a race of several miles, or to run or row one. He 
has often heard of men getting their weight down 
to a certain figure for a similar purpose. He has 
seen some one who did it, and he is confident that 
he can do it. He sets about it, takes much and 
severe physical work daily, warmly clad, perspiring 
freely, while he subjects his skin to much friction 
from coarse towels. He does without certain food 
which he understands makes fat, and only eats that 
which he believes makes mainly bone and muscle. 
He sticks to his work, and gradually makes that 
work harder and faster. To his gratification, he 
finds that not only has his wind improved, so that, 
in the place of the old panting after a slight effort 
— walking briskly up an ordinary flight of stairs, 
for instance — he can now breathe as easily and 
quietly, and can stick to it as long, as any of his 
leaner companions. By race-day he is down ten, 
fifteen, or twenty pounds, or even more, as the case 
may be. While he has thus reduced himself, and 
is far stronger and more enduring than he was 
before, he is not the only one who has lost flesh, if 
there have been a number working with him, as 
in a boat -crew. Notice the lists of our univer- 
sity crews and their weights, published when they 



156 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC 



commence strict training, say a month before the 
race, and compare them with those of the same 
men on race-day, particularly in hot weather. The 
reduction is very marked all through the crew. In 
the English university eights it is even more strik- 
ing, the large and stalwart fellows, who fill their 
thwarts, of ten coming down in a month an average 
of over a dozen pounds per man. 

We have seen a student, after weighing himself 
on scales in the gymnasium, sit down at a fifty-five 
pound rowing weight, pull forty-five full strokes a 
minute for twenty minutes, then, clad exactly as 
before, weigh again on the same scales, and find 
he was just one pound lighter than he was twenty 
minutes earlier. 

But the difference is more marked in more ma- 
tured men, who naturally run to flesh, than in stu- 
dents. A prize-fighter, for instance, in changing 
from a life of indulgence and immoderate drink- 
ing, will often come down as much as thirty, or 
even forty pounds, in preparing for his contest. It 
should be remembered that, besides other advan- 
tages of his being thin, it is of great importance 
that his face should be so lean that a blow on his 
cheek shall not puff it up, and swell it so as to shut 
up his eye, and put him at his enemy's mercy. 

But most people do not care to take such severe 
and arduous work as either the amateur athlete or 



WORK FOR THE FLESHY, THE THIN. THE OLD. 157 

7 / 

the prize-fighter. If they could hit on some com- 
paratively light and easy way of restoring them- 
selves physically to a hard-muscle basis, and could 
so shake off their burden of flesh without inter- 
fering seriously with their business, they would be 
glad to try it. Let us see if this can be done. 

In the summer of 1877 the writer met a gentle- 
man of middle age, whom he had known for years, 
and who has been long connected with one of the 
United States departments in New York city. A 
very steady, hard - working officer, his occupation 
was a sedentary one. Remembering him as a man, 
till recently, of immense bulk, and being struck 
with his evident and great shrinkage, we inquired 
if he had been ill. He replied that he had not 
been ill, that for years he had not enjoyed better 
health. Questioning him as to his altered appear- 
ance, he said that, on the eighteenth day of Jan- 
uary, 1877, he weighed three hundred and five 
pounds ; that, having become so unwieldy, his flesh 
was a source of great hinderance and annoyance to 
him. Then he had determined, if possible, to get 
rid of some of it. Having to be at work all day, 
he could only effect his purpose in the evenings, 
or not at all. So, making no especial change in 
his diet, he took to walking, and soon began to 
average from three to five miles an evening, and 
at the best pace he could make. In the cold 



158 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC 



months he says that he often perspired so that 
small icicles would form on the ends of his hair. 
Asking if it did not come a little stiff sometimes, 
on stormy nights or when he was very tired, and 
whether he did not omit his exercise at such times, 
he said no, but, on the contrary, added two miles, 
which shows the timber the man was made of. 
On the eighteenth of June of the same year, just 
five months from the start, he weighed but two 
hundred and fifteen pounds, having actually taken 
off ninety pounds ^ and had so altered that his for- 
mer clothes would not fit him at all. Since that 
time we have again seen him, and he says he is 
now down to two hundred, and that he has taken 
to horseback -riding, as he is fond of that. He 
looks to-day a large, strong, hearty man of about 
five feet ten, of rather phlegmatic temperament, 
but no one would ever think of him as a fat man. 

Now here is a man well known to hundreds of 
the lawyers of the New York Bar, a living exam- 
ple of what a little energy and determination will 
accomplish for a person who sets about his task as 
if he meant to perform it. 

During the war, M , a member of the Bos- 
ton Police force, known to the writer, was said to 
weigh three hundred and fifteen pounds, and was 
certainly an enormously large man. He went 
South, served for some time as stoker on a gun- 



WORK FOR THE FLESHY, THE THIN, THE OLD. 159 

boat, and an intimate friend of his informed us 
that he had reduced his weight to one hundred and 
eighty-four. 

A girl of fifteen or sixteen, and inclined to be 
fleshy, found that, by a good deal of horseback- 
riding daily, she lost twenty -five pounds in one 
year — so a physician familiar with her case in- 
formed us. 

Brisk walking, and being on the feet much of 
the day — as Americans, for instance, find it neces- 
sary to do when they try to see the Parisian gal- 
leries and many other of Europe's attractions all 
in a very few weeks — will tell decidedly on the 
weight of fleshy people, and dispose them to move 
more quickly. When you can do it, this is per- 
haps not such a bad way to reduce yourself. 

Now, if so many have found that vigorous mus- 
cular exercise, taken daily and assiduously, accom- 
plished the desired end for them, does it not look 
as if a similar course, combined with a little 
strength of purpose, would bring similar benefit to 
others ? In anv case, such a course has this ad van- 
tage : begun easily, and followed up with grad- 
ually increasing vigor, it will be sure to tone up 
and strengthen one, and add to the spring and 
quickness of movement, whether it reduces one's 
flesh or not. But it is a sort of work where free 
perspiration must be encouraged, not hindered, for 



160 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

this is plainly a prominent element in effecting the 
desired purpose. 

But, while many of us know instances where fat 
people have, by exercise, been reduced to a normal 
weight, is it possible for a thin person to become 
stouter ? A thin person may have a large frame 
or a slender one. Is there any work which will 
increase the weight of each, and bring desirable 
roundness and plumpness of trunk and limb ? 

Take, first, the slim man. Follow him for a day, 
or even an hour, and you will usually find that, 
while often active — indeed, too active — still he does 
no work which a person of his height need be real- 
ly strong to do. Put him beside such a person who 
is not merely large, but really strong and in equal- 
ly good condition, and correspondingly skilful, and 
let the two train for an athletic feat of some sort 
— row together, for instance, or some other work 
where each must cany other weight in addition to 
his own. The first mile they can go well together, 
and one will do about as much as the other. But 
as the second wears along, the good strength be- 
gins to tell; and the slim man, while, perhaps, 
sustaining his form pretty well, and going through 
the motions, is not quite doing the work, and his 
friend is gradually drawing away from him. At 
the third mile the disparity grows very marked, 
and the stronger fellow has it all his own way, 



WORK FOR THE FLESHY, THE THIN, THE OLD. 161 

while at the end he also finds that he has not 
taken as much out of him as his slender rival. He 
has had more to carry, both in his boat's greater 
weight, and especially in his own, but his carrying 
power was more than enough to make up for the 
difference. Measure the slim man where you will, 
about his arm or shoulders, chest or thigh or calf, 
and the other outmeasures him ; the only girth 
where he is up, and perhaps ahead, is that of his 
head — for thin fellows often have big heads. The 
muscles of the stronger youth are larger as well as 
stronger. 

Now, take the slim fellow, and set him to mak- 
ing so many efforts a day with any given muscle 
or muscles, say those of his upper left arm, for 
instance. Put some reward before him which he 
would like greatly to have— say a hundred thou- 
sand dollars — if in one year from date he will in- 
crease the girth of that same upper left arm two 
honest inches. Now, watch him, if he has any 
spirit and stuff, as thin fellows very often have, 
and see what he does. Insist, too, that whatever 
he does shall in no way interfere with his business 
or regular duties, whatever they may be, but that 
he must find other time for it. And what will he 
do ? Why, he will leave no stone unturned to find 
just what work uses the muscles in question, and 
at that work he will go, with a resolution which 

11 



162 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

no obstacle will balk. He is simply showing the 
truth of Emerson's broad rule, that "in all human 
action those faculties will be strong which are 
used ;" and of Maclaren's, " Where the activity is, 
there will be the development." 

The new work flushes the muscles in question 
with far more blood than before, while the wear 
and tear being greater, the call for new material 
corresponds, and more and more hearty food is 
eaten and assimilated. The quarter-inch or more 
of gain the first fortnight often becomes the whole 
inch in less than two months, and long before the 
year is out the coveted two inches have come. 
And, in acquiring them, his whole left arm and 
shoulder have had correspondingly new strength 
added, quite going past his right, though it was the 
larger at first, if meanwhile he has practically let 
it alone. 

There are some men, either at the college or 
city gymnasiums, every year, who are practical- 
ly getting to themselves such an increase in the 
strength and size of some particular muscles. 

We knew one at college who, on entering, stood 
hardly five feet four, weighed but about one hun- 
dred and fifteen pounds, and was small and rather 
spare. For four years he worked with great stead- 
iness in the gymnasium, afoot and on the water, 
and he graduated a five-foot-eight man, splendid- 



WORK FOR THE FLESHY, THE THIN, THE OLD. 163 

]y built, and weighing a hundred and sixty-eight 
pounds — every pound a good one, for he was one 
of the best bow-oarsmen his university ever saw. 

Another, tall and very slender, but with a large 
head and a very bright mind, was an habitual fault- 
finder at everything on the table, no matter if it 
was fit for a prince. A friend got him, for awhile, 
into a little athletic work — walking, running, and 
sparring — until he could trot three miles fairly, 
and till one day he walked forty-five — pretty well 
used up, to be sure, but he walked it. Well, his ap- 
petite went up like a rocket. Where the daintiest 
food would not tempt him before, he would now 
promptly hide a beefsteak weighing a clean pound 
at a meal, and that no matter if cooked in some 
roadside eating-house, where nothing w r as neat or 
tidy, and flies abounded almost as they did once 
in Egypt in Pharaoh's day. His friends frequent- 
ly spoke of his improved temper, and how much 
easier it was to get on with him. But after a 
while his efforts slackened, and his poor stomach 
returned to its old vices, at least in part. Had he 
kept at what was doing so much for him, it would 
have continued to prove a many-sided blessing. 

If steady and vigorous use of one set of mus- 
cles gradually increases their size, why should not 
a similar allowance, distributed to each, do the 
same for all? See (Appendix V.) what it did in 



164 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



four months and twelve days for Maclaren's pupil 
of nineteen, whose upper arm not only gained a 
w r hole inch and a half (think how that would add 
to the beauty alone of many a woman's arm, to say 
nothing of its strength), and whose chest enlarged 
five inches and a quarter, but whose weight went 
up eight pounds ! Or what it did (see Appendix 
IV.) for Sargent's pupil of nineteen, who in just 
one year, besides making an inch and a half of 
upper arm, and three and a half of chest, went 
up from a hundred and forty-five pounds to a hun- 
dred and sixty, or a clean gain of fifteen pounds. 
Or (see Appendix VI.) for Maclaren's man, fully 
twenty-eight years old, who, in seven months and 
nineteen days, made sixteen pounds ; or (Appen- 
dix VII.) for his youth of sixteen, who in just one 
year increased his weight full tioenty-one pounds ! 

These facts certainly show pretty clearly wheth- 
er sensible bodily exercise, taken regularly, and 
aimed at the weak spots, will not tell, and tell pret- 
ty rapidly, on the thin man wanting to stouten, and 
tell, too, in the way he wants. 

It will make one eat heartily, it will make him 
sleep hard and long. Every ounce of the food is 
now digested, and the long sleep is just what he 
needed. Indeed, if, after a hearty dinner, a man 
would daily take a nap, and later in the day enough 
hard work to make sure of being thoroughly tired 



WORK FOR THE FLESHY, THE THIN, THE OLD. 165 

when bedtime came, he would doubtless find the 
flesh coming in a way to which he was a stranger. 
Many thin persons do not rest enough. They are 
constantly on the go, and the lack of phlegm in 
their make-up rather increases this activity, though 
they do not necessarily accomplish more than those 
who take care to sit and lie still more. 

The writer, at nineteen, spent four weeks on a 
farm behind the Catskills, in Delaware County, 
New York. It was harvest-time, and, full of ath- 
letic ardor, and eager to return to college the bet- 
ter for the visit, we took a hand with the men. All 
the farm-hands were uniformly on the field at 
six o'clock in the morning;, and it would average 
nearly or quite eight at night before the last load 
was snugly housed away in the mow. It was sharp, 
hard work all day long, with a tough, wiry, square- 
loined fellow in the leading swath all the morning. 
But to follow him we were bound to or drop, while 
the pitchfork or rake never rested from noon till 
sunset. Breakfast was served at five-thirty; din- 
ner at eleven ; supper at four; and a generous bowl 
of bread-and-milk — or two bowls, if you wanted 
them — at nine o'clock, just before bedtime, with 
plenty of spring-water between meals ; while the 
fare itself was good and substantial, just what j 7 ou 
would find on any well-to-do farmer's table. And 
such an appetite, and such sleep ! Solomon must 



166 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

have tried some similar adventure when he wrote 
that "the sleep of the laboring man is sweet, wheth- 
er he eat little or much." Well, when we returned 
to college and got on the scales again, the one hun- 
dred and forty-three pounds at starting had some- 
how become a hundred and fifty-six ! And with 
them such a grip, and such a splendid feeling ! 
We have rowed many a race since, but there was 
as hard work done by some of that little squad on 
that old mountain farm as any man in our boat 
ever did, and there was not much attention paid 
to any one's training rules either. 

It is notorious, among those used to training for 
athletic contests, that thin men, if judiciously held 
in, and not allowed to do too much work, generally 
" train up," or gain decidedly in weight, almost as 
much, in fact, as the fleshy ones lose. 

Now, were the object simply to train up as much 
as possible, unusual care could be taken to insure 
careful and deliberate eating, with a generous 
share of the fat and flesh making sorts of food, 
and quiet rest always for awhile after each meal, 
to aid the digestive organs at their work. Slow, 
deep, abdominal breathing is a great ally to this 
latter process; indeed, works direct benefit to many 
of the vital organs, and so to the whole man. All 
the sleep the man can possibly take at night would 
also tell in the right way. So would everything 



WORK FOR THE FLESHY, THE THIN, THE OLD. 167 

that would tend to prevent fret and worry, or 
which would cultivate the ability to bear them 
philosophically. But most thin people do not 
keep still enough, do not take matters leisurely, 
and do not rest enough; while, if their work is 
muscular, they do too much daily in proportion to 
their strength. 

They are very likely also to be inerect, with flat, 
thin chests, and contracted stomach and abdomen. 
Now the habit of constantly keeping erect, whether 
sitting, standing, or walking, combined with this 
same deep, abdominal breathing, soon tends to ex- 
pand not only the lower ribs and lower part of the 
lungs, but the waist as well, so giving the digestive 
organs more room and freer play. Like the lungs, 
or any other organ, they do their work best when 
in no way constrained. Better yet, if the person 
will also habituate himself, no matter what he is 
at, whether in motion or sitting still, to not only 
breathing the lower half of the lungs full, but the 
whole lungs as well, and at each inspiration hold 
the air in his chest as long as he comfortably can, 
he will speedily find a quickened and more vigor- 
ous circulation, which will be shown, for instance, 
by the veins in his hands becoming larger, and the 
hands themselves growing warmer if the air be 
cold ; he will also feel a mild and agreeable exhila- 
ration such as he has seldom before experienced. 



168 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

Some of these are little things, and for that reason 
they are the easier to do ; but in this business, as in 
many others, little things often turn the scale. Of 
two brothers, equally thin, equally over-active, as 
much alike as possible — if one early formed these 
simple habits of slow and thorough mastication, 
deep and full breathing, resting awhile after meals, 
carrying his body uniformly erect, and sleeping 
plentifully, and his brother all the while cared 
for none of these things, it is highly probable that 
these little attentions would, in a few years, tell 
very decidedly in favor of him who practised them, 
and gradually bring to him that greater breadth, 
depth, and serenity, and the accompanying greater 
weight of the broad, full, and hearty man. 

And what about the old people? Take a person 
of sixty. You don't want him to turn gymnast, 
surely. No ; not to turn gymnast, but to set aside 
a small portion of each day for taking such body 
as he or she now has, and making the best of it. 

But how can that be done ? and is it practicable 
at all for a person sixty years old, or more ? Well, 
let us see what one, not merely sixty, but eighty, 
and more too, had to say on this point. Shortly 
after the death of the late William Cullen Bryant, 
the New York Evening Post, of which he had 
long been editor, published in its semi-weekly issue 
of June 14th, 1878, the following letter: 



WORK FOR THE FLESHY, THE THIN, THE OLD. 169 



cf MR. BRYANT 7 S MODE OF LIFE. 

"The following letter, written by Mr. Bryant 
several years ago, describing the habits of his life, 
to which he partly ascribed the wonderful preser- 
vation of his physical and mental vigor, will be 
read with interest now : 

" ' New York, March 30, 1871. 
" ' To Joseph H. Richards, Esq. : 

" 'My dear Sir, — I promised some time since to give you some 
account of my habits of life, so far at least as regards diet, exer- 
cise, and occupations. I am not sure that it will be of any use to 
you, although the system which I have for many years observed 
seems to answer my purpose very well. I have reached a pretty 
advanced period of life, without the usual infirmities of old age, 
and with my strength, activity, and bodily faculties generally, in 
pretty good preservation. How far this may be the effect of my 
way of life, adopted long ago and steadily adhered to, is perhaps 
uncertain. 

" * I rise early ; at this time of the year about half-past five ; in 
summer, half an hour or even an hour earlier. Immediately, with 
very little encumbrance of clothing, I begin a series of exercises, 
for the most part designed to expand the chest, and at the same 
time call into action all the muscles and articulations of the body. 
These are performed with dumb-bells, the very lightest, covered 
with flannel, with a pole, a horizontal bar, and a light chair swung 
around my head. After a full hour, and sometimes more, passed 
in this manner, I bathe from head to foot. When at my place in 
the country, I sometimes shorten my exercises in the chamber, 
and, going out, occupy myself for half an hour or more in some 
work which requires brisk exercise. After my bath, if breakfast 
be not ready, I sit down to my studies till I am called. 



170 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

" ' After breakfast I occupy myself for awhile with my studies, 
and then, when in town, I walk down to the office of the Evening 
Post, nearly three miles distant, and, after about three hours, re- 
turn, always walking, whatever be the weather or the state of the 
streets. In the country, I am engaged in my literary tasks till a 
feeling of weariness drives me out into the open air, and I go upon 
my farm or into the garden and prune the fruit-trees, or perform 
some other work about them which they need, and then go back 
to my books. I do not often drive out, preferring to walk. 

5|* *JC 5|€ 5jC 5jC 5|C 5fC 

" ' I am, sir, truly yours, 

"<W. C. Bryant.'" 

The same paper also contained the following: 

"REMINISCENCES OF A FORMER BUSINESS ASSOCIATE. 

"Mr. William G. Boggs, who knew Mr. Bryant intimately for 
many years, has given the following reminiscences to a representa- 
tive of the Evening Post : 

" 'During the forty years that I have known him, Mr. Bryant 
has never been ill — never been confined to his bed, except on the oc- 
casion of his last accident. His health has always been good. 

" 'Mr. Bryant was a great walker. In earlier years he would 
think nothing of walking to Paterson Falls and back, with Alfred 
Pell and James Lawson, after office hours. He always walked 
from his home to his place of business, even in his eighty-fourth 
year. At first he wouldn't ride in the elevator. He would never 
wait for it, if it was not ready for the ascent immediately on his 
arrival in the building. Of gymnastic exercises he was very fond. 
Every morning, for half an hour, he would go through a series of 
evolutions on the backs of two chairs placed side by side. He 
would hang on the door of his bedroom, pulling himself up and 
down an indefinite number of times. He would skirmish around 



WORK FOR THE FLESHY, THE THIN, THE OLD. 171 

the apartment after all fashions, and once he told me even "under 
the table." Breakfast followed, then a walk down town; and 
then he was in the best of spirits for the writing of his editorial 
article for that day. 



" ' He was a constant student. His daily leading editorial con- 
stituted, and was for many years, the Evening Post. Sometimes 
he would not get it written until one o'clock. " Can't I have it 
earlier?" I asked him one day. "Why not write it the evening 
before ?" "Ah," he replied, " if I should empty out the keg in that 
way, it would soon be exhausted." He wanted his evenings for 
study. " Well, then, can't you get down earlier in the morning?" 
He said, "Oh yes." A few months afterward he exclaimed, with 
reference to the change*. "I like it. I go through my gymnastics, 
walk all the way down, and when I get here I feel like work. I 
like it.'"" 

Mr. Boggs also tells us that Mr. Bryant's sight 
and hearing were scarcely impaired even up to his 
death. 

How remarkable these facts seem ! Here a man, 
known to the whole civilized world, says at seventy- 
seven that he " has reached a pretty advanced pe- 
riod of life without the usual infirmities of old age, 
and with his strength, activity, and bodily faculties 
generally in pretty good preservation." Wouldn't 
most of us like to do that ? Are there not men 
who would promptly give millions, not "for an 
inch of time," but to be able to reach seventy- 
seven, and to say of themselves what Mr. Bryant 
could say of himself at that age ? Nor at seventy- 



172 HOW TO GET STKONG-, ETC. 



seven only, but at eighty-four, for his friend tells 
the same thing of him then. 

And notice what he did : " Every morning," not 
for two or three minutes only, but " for half an 
hour, he would go through a series of evolutions on 
the backs of two chairs placed side by side." The 
"dips" which have been recommended in another 
place,* and which are so excellent for making the 
chest strong and keeping it so, are doubtless the 
"evolutions" meant; and as the great majority 
of men, whether young or old, have not strength 
of triceps and pectorals enough to even struggle 
through one of them, some conception can be 
formed of how wonderfully wiry and strong this 
large-headed, spare-bodied, illustrious old man was, 
to say nothing of the strength of purpose which 
would keep him so rigidly up to his work at an 
age when most men would have thought it their 
unquestionable duty to coddle themselves. Just 
think of a man over eighty " pulling himself up 
and down" — evidently on the " horizontal bar" 
he mentions — "an indefinite number of times!" 
Or "always walking" down to the office of the 
Evening Post, nearly three miles distant, and, af- 
ter three hours, return, always walking, whatever 
be the weather or the state of the streets ! Or of 

* See page 240. 



WORK FOR THE FLESHY, THE THIN, THE OLD. 173 

never waiting for the elevator if it was not ready, 
but always walking up the nine flights from the 
street to his office ! And the writer has often seen 
him going up the top flight, and, instead of his step 
being faltering and feeble, it was uniformly a trot! 
See what two other old men did — in some ways 
even a more remarkable thing than Mr. Bryant's 
great activity. The following despatch is from 
the New York Herald of February 23d, 1879 : 

"the old men's walk. 

"New Haven, Conn., Feb. 22, 18T9. 
"The walk between Thomas Carey, of the New York Cotton 
Exchange, and Joseph Y. Marsh, of this city, terminated to-night 
at a quarter of an hour before the appointed time, Marsh with- 
drawing. Carey had walked 211 miles and a fraction, to 209 
miles and a corresponding fraction for Marsh. After the walk 
Marsh said that he was convinced that he had been beaten, and 
Carey made a speech expressing satisfaction with the manner in 
which he had been treated. The walk began on Wednesday of 
the present week, at eleven o'clock, and terminated at forty-five 
minutes past ten to-night. Carey is a great-grandfather, and is 
sixty-four years old, and Marsh sixty-three. Both had trained 
for the walk. It is understood that they will walk again in New 
York." 

Sixty miles a day for three days and a half, and 
by a great-grandfather at that ! Any man, or any 
horse, might well hold that a good day's work. 

This activity among men so far on in years 
seems surprising. And why ? Because, as people 



174 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

get past middle-life, of ten from becoming engross- 
ed in business, and out of the way of anything to 
induce them to continue their muscular activity, 
of tener from increasing caution, and fear that some 
effort, formerly easy, may now prove hazardous to 
them, they purposely avoid even ordinary exercise 
— riding when they might, and indeed ought to, 
walk, and, instead of walking their six miles a 
day, and looking after their arms and chests be- 
sides, as Bryant did, gradually come to do nothing 
each day worthy of the name of exercise. Then 
the joints grow dry and stiff, and snap and crack 
as they work. The old ease of action is gone, and 
disinclination takes its place. The man makes up 
his mind that he is growing old and stiff — often 
before he is sixty — and that there is no help for 
that stiffness. 

Well, letting the machinery alone works a good 
deal the same whether it is made of iron and steel, 
and driven by steam, or of flesh and blood and 
bones, and driven by the human heart. Maclaren 
cleverly compares this stiffening of the joints to the 
working of hinges, which, when " left unused and 
unoiled for any length of time, grate and creak, 
and move stiffly. The hinges of the human body 
do just the same thing, and from the same cause; 
and they not only require frequent oiling to ena- 
ble them to move easily, but they are oiled every 



WORK FOR THE FLESHY, THE THIN, THE OLD. 175 

time they are put in motion, and when they are 
put in motion only. The membrane which se- 
cretes this oil, and pours it forth over the opposing 
surfaces of the bones and the overlying ligaments, 
is stimulated to activity only by the motion of the 
joint itself." Had Bryant spared himself as most 
men do, would he have been such a springy, easy 
walker, and so strong and handy at eighty-four? 
Does it not look as if the half-hour at the dumb- 
bells, and chairs, and horizontal bar, and the twelve 
or fifteen thousand steps which he took each day, 
had much to do with this spring and activity in 
such a green old age? Does it not look almost as 
if he had, half a century ago, read something not 
unlike the following from Maclaren : 

"The first course of the system may be freely 
and almost unconditionally recommended to men 
throughout what may be called middle life, care 
being taken to use a bell and bar well within the 
physical capacity. The best time for this practice 
is in the early morning, immediately after the 
bath, and, when regularly taken, it need not ex- 
tend over more than a few minutes." 

Whether Bryant had ever seen these rules or 
not, the bell, the bar, and the morning- time for 
exercise make a noticeable coincidence. 

Looking at the benefit daily exercise brought in 
the instances mentioned, would it not be well for 



176 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



every man who begins to feel his age to at once 
adopt some equally moderate and sensible course 
of daily exercise, and to enter on it with a good 
share of his own former energy and vigor? He 
does not need to live in the country to effect it, nor 
in the city. He can readily secure the few bits of 
apparatus suggested elsewhere* for his own home, 
wherever that home is, and so take care of his 
arms and chest. For foot -work there is always 
the road. Is it not worth while to make the ef- 
fort? He can begin very mildly, and yet in a 
month reach quite a creditable degree of activity, 
and then keep that up. And if, as Mr. Bryant did, 
he should last till well past eighty, and, like him, 
keep free from deafness and dimness of vision, 
from stiffness and shortness of breath, from gout, 
rheumatism, paralysis, and other senile ailments, 
as he put it himself, " without the usual infirmities 
of old age" — indeed, with his "strength, activity, 
and bodily faculties generally in pretty good pres- 
ervation," and all that time could attend promptly 
to all the daily duties of an active business as he 
did, as Vanderbilt did, as Palmerston did, as Thiers 
f did — is not the effort truly worth the making? 
And who knows what he can do till he tries? 

* See page 91. 



HALF-TRAINED FIREMEN AND POLICE. 177 



CHAPTER XL 

HALF-TRAINED FIREMEN AND POLICE. 

There are two classes of men in our cities and 
larger towns who, more than almost any others, 
need daily and systematic bodily exercise, in order 
to make them efficient for their duties, and some- 
thing like what men in their lines ought to be. In 
times of peace they do in many ways what the 
army does for the whole country in war-time — 
they protect life and property. These are the 
police and firemen. 

The work of some of the firemen before they 
reach a fire is even more dangerous than when 
actually among the flames. The examining phy- 
sician of one of our largest life insurance compa- 
nies told the writer that he frequently had to re- 
ject firemen applying for insurance, because they 
had seriously injured their hearts by running hard 
to fires when quite untrained and unfit for such 
sudden and severe strain on the heart and lungs, 
imposed, as it usually is, under much excitement. 
The introduction of steam fire-engines has in part 
done away with this, though even they often have 

12 



178 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

a man to run before and clear the way ; but in 
smaller places, of course, the old danger exists. 
Thorough and efficient as this steam-service is in 
many ways, and trained as the men are to their 
duties, they are, very many of them, not nearly so 
effective as they might easily be, and as, consider- 
ing the fact that the fireman's work is their sole 
occupation, they ought to be. Men of pluck and 
daring, and naturally strong, often for days to- 
gether they have no fire to go to, and so sit and 
stand around the engine house for hours and hours. 
Soon they begin to fatten, until often they weigh 
thirty or forty pounds more than they would in 
good condition for enduring work. Having no 
daily exercise which gives all parts of the body 
increased life and strength, neither the stout nor 
thin ones begin to be so strong, so quick of move- 
ment, or enduring as they would be if kept in 
good condition. To carry from an upper story of 
a high building a person in a swoon or half suf- 
focated, and to get such a burden safely down a 
long narrow ladder through stifling smoke and ter- 
rible flame, is a feat requiring, beside great nerve 
and courage, decided strength and endurance. 
Exposure during long periods, perhaps drenched 
through, perhaps holding up a heavy hose in the 
winter's cold, or in many another duty all fire- 
men well know, often without food or drink for 



HALF-TRAINED FIREMEN AND POLICE. 179 

many hours, taxes very severely even the strongest 
man. 

And what training have these men for this trying 
work outside of what the fire itself actually gives? 
Practically, none. Suppose every man on the force 
was required to spend an hour, or even half an 
hour, daily in work which would call into play not 
all their muscles, but simply those likely to be most 
needed when the real work came. Suppose each 
of them a wiry, hard-muscled, very enduring man, 
good any day for a three or five mile run at a re- 
spectable pace, and without detriment to himself, 
or to go, if need be, hand over hand up the entire 
length of one of their long ladders — to be, in short, 
as strong, as handy, as enduring, as even a second- 
rate athlete. Is there any question that a force 
made up of such men would be far better qualified 
for their work, and far more efficient at it, than 
the firemen of any of our cities are now ? 

And if they think they at present have con- 
siderable daily exercise, so does a British soldier 
decidedly more, in his daily drilling, and the w T hole 
round of his duties; and yet, after Maclaren had 
one of them exercising for but a brief period, but 
in a way to bring up his general strength, the sol- 
dier said, " I feel twice the man I did for any- 
thing a man could be set to do." Would it hurt a 
fireman or a policeman any to have that feeling? 



180 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

Would the latter not be more inclined to rely on 
his own strength, and less on his club? 

If the training suggested seems too hard, look 
at the younger men in blacksmithing, for instance, 
and many other kinds of iron-work, swinging, as 
they often do, a heavy sledge for the whole day 
together ; at the postmen, walking from morning 
to evening, often up many flights of stairs, and all 
the year round, and in all weathers ; at the iron- 
puddler,the hod-carrier, the 3 longshore-man— all at 
work nearly or quite as hard, not for one short 
hour only, but through all the burden and heat 
of the day. Many of these men are not nearly as 
well paid as the firemen, and none of them begin 
to have as great responsibility, or are at any mo- 
ment likely to be called on to take their lives in 
their hands, and perhaps to save other lives as well. 

Let us look at the policeman. What exercise 
lias he ? Standing around, and considerable slow 
walking, for six hours out of each twelve. Is there 
anything to make him swift of foot ? No. Any- 
thing to build up his arms and expand his chest, 
to make those arms help him in his business, and 
those hands twice as skilful for his purposes as be- 
fore? Very little. Taught to use his hands he 
is, but never empty ; there must be something in 
them — a club or a revolver. And so comes what 
legitimate result? Why is it that in a conflict, or 



HALF-TRAINED FIREMEN AND POLICE. 181 

even a threatened one — or, too often, not even then 
— and when the culprit, while drunk, is wholly un- 
resisting, we constantly hear of these dangerous 
weapons being drawn and freely used ? Some of 
the very men set to preserve the peace are them- 
selves every now and then making assaults wholly 
uncalled for, always cowardly, and often brutal, 
and such as an athletic man, proud of his strength, 
w r ould have scorned the idea of making, but, in- 
stead, would have so quickly displayed his skill 
and strength that the average offender, especially 
when he recalled the fact that the officer had the 
law on his side, would have soon ceased resisting. 
Every intelligent New Yorker will at one recognize 
that there is far too frequently good ground for 
such editorial comment, grim as is its satire, as the 
following from a well-known New York journal, 
of September 20th, 1878: 

"a complicated police case. 

"We have recorded from time to time in the T various 

interesting police cases. With all our skill and experience, how- 
ever, we could not prevent a shade of monotony stealing over them. 
When in nine cases out of ten the picture presented is that of a 
policeman clubbing a man nearly to death, by what resource of 
rhetoric can you avoid monotony ? For the sake of variety, as well 
as for the public good, many people wish that a citizen would oc- 
casionally kill a brutal policeman ; only that, in thus ridding the 
world of a human brute not worthy to live in it, the mockery that 
is called justice in New York and Brooklyn would probably also 



182 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

send out of the world the inoffensive citizen who had accomplished 
the good work. In a recent case, however, matters have become 
most ingeniously complicated. One policeman has arrested an- 
other. On Tuesday night two men got into a fight in the Bowery. 
Detective Archibald, who was in plain clothes, undertook, it is said, 
to arrest them. Then, it is stated, Officer LefFerts arrived, and ar- 
rested the whole party, detective and all. We say that this is a 
complicated case ; but so it did not seem to Justice Morgan, of the 
Jefferson Market Police Court. If a policeman arrests a citizen, 
it is no longer possible for the latter to get justice. He is glad if 
he can get away with a whole skull and unbroken ribs. But one 
policeman arresting another! The only way in which this can be 
set right depends upon which policeman had the most influence at 
head-quarters. " 

And what sort of man is he who is thus too free 
with his weapon ? Take him in New York city, 
for instance. Out of nearly twenty-five hundred 
policemen, it is entirely safe to say that one-third 
— and it would probably be much nearer the truth 
to say that all of two-thirds — are unathletic men, 
and that a very large proportion of these are either 
clumsy, unwieldy, and short- winded, or not pos- 
sessed of even average bodily strength. Even in 
their uniforms this is quickly apparent; but the 
true way to judge is to see them stripped, either in 
gymnastic costume or at the swimming-bath. Any 
number of them have indifferent legs ; there are 
any number of stout, paunchy fellows ; and old 
ones, too, doubling over with their years; flat- 
chested ones, big-footed and half-built men. 



HALF-TRAINED FIREMEN AND POLICE. 183 

Try to select some of these men for a physi- 
cal feat, say of speed and endurance, like running 
or rowing, and see how few would be fit for the 
work. Pair them off, give them gloves, and set 
them to boxing, and there would scarce be one 
hundred good sparrers out of the whole brigade. 
Once, right in front of Trinity church -yard, on 
Broadway, we saw two of the Broadway squad put 
up their hands for a little good-natured sparring, 
and the way they did it would hardly have been 
creditable to a ten -year -old. To see two great, 
hulking six-footers, ignorant of the first rudiments 
of good sparring, actually whirling their fists round 
and round each other as if winding yarn, and 
with no sort of idea how to use even one hand, 
let alone two, was positively ridiculous. A hun- 
dred-pound thief, handy with his fists and quick 
of foot, could have slapped their faces, and, if 
they could run no better than they sparred, could 
have been at the Battery before either of them was 
half-way. And what good would their weapons 
have been? Their revolvers they would hardly 
dare to use in a crowded street at broad noon, nor 
would they have been justified in so doing. And 
their clubs — of what use would they be if the cul- 
prit was a block away % 

The writer once saw a fellow, apparently a sneak- 
thief, cutting acrosB the City Hall Park, in front 



184: HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

of the Tribune building, at a clipping pace, while 
some distance behind came one of those majestic 
but logy guardians of the peace, making about one 
foot to the other's two, and, finally, seeing how hope- 
less was the pursuit, bringing his club around and 
throwing it after the escaping thief — and with what 
result? Excellent for the thief, for, instead of 
coming anywhere near him, it passed dangerously 
close to the abdomen of a worthy but obese citi- 
zen, who chanced to be passing that way. 

At a public exhibition, held early in 1878, under 
the auspices of these very Metropolitan Police, at 
the Hippodrome, in New York, where doubtless 
the very best boxers on the whole force were on 
the boards, and with ten thousand spectators to 
spur them on to their utmost, the thoroughly skil- 
ful and accomplished workmen could be counted 
almost on the thumbs ; while, in the tug of war, the 
string of policemen were overhauled and pulled 
completely down by the Scottish Americans, who 
weighed half a hundred weight less per man than 
their uniformed antagonists; though it is but just 
to add that, later on, the latter did manage to win, 
yet what was that to brag of ? 

The same Police Department held a regatta on 
the Harlem River on the twenty-ninth of August, 
1878, for which there were many entries ; yet out 
of them all, with one or two exceptions, there 



HALF-TRAINED. FIREMEN AND POLICE. 185 

was no performance which was not of the most 
commonplace character, unworthy of an average 
freshman crew, and this though many of the row- 
ers were burly, heavy men. One of the single- 
scullers actually did not know how to back his 
boat over some fifty feet of water, and, after four 
ineffectual endeavors, had to be told how to do so 
from the referee's boat. 

Now place the whole force abreast on a broad 
common, or in half a dozen lines, and set them to 
run a mile at no racing pace ; at no such gait even 
as John Ennis went in March, 1879, when, after 
474 miles of walking and running in one single 
week, he ran his 475th mile in six minutes eleven 
seconds, but let them go at even a horse-car pace; 
and if five hundred get over even half the distance 
it will be a surprise, while of those who do, many 
stand a good chance to feel the effects for days, if 
not for life. We asked the best known police cap- 
tain in New York city, the president of the old Po- 
lice Athletic Club, whether he thought one-half of 
the whole twenty-five hundred could run a mile 
at any pace which could actually be called a run. 
After deliberating a little, he said he did not think 
they could. One of the most successful athletes 
on the force, in reply to the same question, said : 
" I'll bet my neck against a purse that not one- 
third of them can do it." Another, a magnificent- 



186 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

looking man, standing over six feet three in height, 
and weighing upward of two hundred and fifty, 
not only strongly inclined to the same opinion, 
but, when urged to tell how successful he himself 
would probably be in such a trial, he gave, with a 
little sudden color in his cheeks, substantially as 
follows, this most interesting incident from his own 
experience : 

Standing in a rear room on the main floor of 

the station-house of the Precinct, he heard a 

scream. Going quickly to the street, a lady told 
him that she had been robbed of her pocket-book, 
while a young person gliding gracefully, and, as 
the sequel proved, quite fleetly, around the cor- 
ner, lent force to the statement. Away went the 
engine of the law, his mighty form bending to the 
work, with his best foot foremost. Turning up 
one of the broad avenues, the one hundred and 
twenty-five feet or so of the thief's start had now 
shrunk to seventy-five, and, as the two sped on at 
a grand pace, 

"All and each that passed that way 
Enjoyed the swift 'pursuit.'" 

Block after block was passed, but the gap would 
not close. Go as he would, do his mightiest and 
his best, it was of no use; that lawless young man 
would somehow all the time manage to keep just 



HALF-TRAINED FIREMEN AND POLICE. 187 

seventy-five feet to the fore. Four blocks are now 
done, and so is the policeman ; and bringing up 
all-standing — blown, gasping, exhausted — he can- 
not even muster breath enough to shout, but, reach- 
ing his big hand out in front of him, and looking 
at the young person gently fleeting, with seeming- 
ly unabated vigor, into the dim distance, he sadly 
points to him, for that is all he is just now equal 
to. Fortunately for the interests of justice and 
good order, that point is well taken, for a brother 
officer sees it, and, rising to the occasion, dashes 
off after the misguided young person up the ave- 
nue. " Life is earnest " now, surely, for the latter. 
Still he has nearly a hundred feet start, and may- 
be this second guardian of the peace will not stay 
any better than did his illustrious predecessor. So 
down to it he settles again, and the street enjoys 
the fun. Block after block slips away, and so 
does the official wind, for, at the end of four 
blocks more, no perceptible decrease of the gap 
having yet been made, patrolman number two 
" shuts up." Yes, literally, for he too cannot even 
yell, but, like the first, striking a tragic position, 
he points to the flying culprit. And is justice to 
be cheated out of her victim after all, even now, 
when she a second time is sure that she has reach- 
ed the point ? And is this light-fingered and light- 
heeled young person to escape the minions of the 



188 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



law — and all this in broad daylight too, and right 
on Sixth Avenue ? So it certainly seems. But 
stop ! Justice, after all, is to prevail, for lo ! a third 
pursuer has now caught the trail, and is off like 
a fast mail-train. Have a care now, young man ! 
No brass buttons adorn your pursuer this time; 
but the self-appointed private citizen, now in your 
wake, runs as the wicked flee. There is no cart- 
horse pace about his work; but with one clean, 
business-like spurt, he swoops down on the now 
disturbed young man, and, clutching his upper gar- 
ments, holds him neatly until the reserves come 
up, and then hands him over for his six months on 
the island." 

One more illustration may suffice. The New 
York Herald of December 20th, 1878, referring 
to a burglary which had been committed in the 
28th Precinct, said that suspicion fastened on a 
young man known as "Sleepy Dick." Detective 
Wilson got on the supposed offender's trail, and the 
nearer he got to him the worse grew his charac- 
ter for strength, daring, and ferocity. At last he 
came up with " Sleepy Dick " on Second Avenue 
yesterday. 

"'The jig's up, Sleepy,' said the detective; 
*3 T ou're wanted.' 

" ' What for ?' calmly inquired the other, straight- 
ening upon the coal-box. 



HALF-TRAINED FIREMEN AND POLICE. 189 

" ' Cracking a crib.' 

" ' How long a stretch V 

" ' A fiver, sure. 5 

" Tm not your meat then, cully,' and Dick bolt- 
ed for the corner with no sleepiness about him. 
Wilson grabbed him firmly by the collar, though, 
and there was a scene of plunging and tearing 
witnessed by the crowd around them that eclipsed 
Cornwall or Greeco-Roman wrestling. 

" Suddenly a revolver came flashing out of Wil- 
son's pocket. 

" ' I'm taking this pot,' said he, coolly. 

" 4 Show your hand,' growled ' Sleepy.' 

"'A straight flush;' and Wilson levelled the pis- 
tol at his head. 

" ' That takes this pile,' Dick sullenly assented, 
and he moved on quietly as far as Sixty-first Street. 
Once at the corner, he plunged backward and broke 
loose. The detective's revolver came down on his 
head with a thud, but he rallied under the blow, 
sprung aside, and made for the river. He was 
fleet of foot, and, as he flew down the street, he 
kept looking over his shoulder, evidently in fear 
of a passing bullet. But the detective was coming 
on after him, bound to run him down, and as they 
passed First Avenue the hue and cry was taken up 
by two other policemen, who joined in the pursuit. 
There was fully a block between ' Sleepy ' and his 



190 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



pursuers when he neared the river. He saw his 
advantage, turned into a stone-yard, dodged among 
the bowlders, scaled a fence, and made off. Dick 
has been in the hands of the police before this 
week, but managed to get away." 

Is there no lesson for our city rulers in such 
facts as these ? If our police are men of only four- 
block power ; if they are so blown in that little dis- 
tance that they are utterly helpless, and all they 
can do is, one after another to point to the es- 
caping felon and indulge in these "brilliant flash- 
es of silence," inwardly imploring some good civil- 
ian to kindly catch that thief; if a youngster can 
first indulge in a tough wrestle with a detective, 
and then, taking a heavy blow on his head from 
the butt of a revolver, not only empty-handed get 
away from his would-be captor, but, although the 
latter is joined by two policemen, soon put a 
whole block between him and them, and springing 
over a fence, go, after all, " unwhipt of justice," 
does it not strike the reader that a little improve- 
ment in the speed and stay of our policemen might 
do no harm ? Had it not better be conceded that 
it is hopeless for many of the Broadway squad, for 
instance, in their present condition, to attempt to 
catch a thief by running after him, and would it 
not be well to provide each of them with a lasso, 
for short-range work, and initiate them in its uses 



HALF-TRAINED FIREMEN AND POLICE. 191 

at once? In this way they could certainly make 
sure of one of those light-heeled gentry once in a 
while, perhaps — for example, one fond of lady's 
ear-rings. And who believes that officers always 
report their failures to catch thieves, or that the 
public ever hears of one-half of such cases? 

Let us see, too, where this physical incapacity 
may lead to graver consequences than the mere 
allowing a detected thief to run at large. In the 
great cities there have sprung up within a few 
years back storehouses for the safe-keeping of se- 
curities, plate, important papers, and other valua- 
bles. Hedged around with plates of steel, chro- 
nometer-locks, massive bolts, and several watch- 
men, and connected with the nearest police station 
by wires so arranged that the doors cannot be 
opened without sounding the alarm at the station- 
house, the public naturally put their trust in them, 
and their property too. Within recent years we 
also hear far more than formerly of burglars go- 
ing not in pairs or threes, but in gangs of half 
a dozen or more, and of cracking safes always 
thought impenetrable. Now, suppose that a de- 
scent were made on the largest one of these safe 
depositories in America, the one under the New 
York Stock Exchange, and by a dozen first-class 
cracksmen. Their business hours are generally be- 
tween one and four in the morning. That they 



192 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

work with wonderful sagacity, daring, and despatch, 
is attested by such brilliant performance as that at 
the Northampton Bank robbery, or when they in 
a little time, one morning, relieved the Manhattan 
Bank of a few millions, and that right within a 
block of police head-quarters in New York city. 
Suppose that, by collusion or otherwise, the rob- 
bers get through the outer door. Unlike the Bank 
of England, there is no platoon of soldiers on 
guard. They silence the three or four who oppose 
them. They come to the inner doors, the opening 
of which alarms the police. At the station-house, 
when that alarm sounds, three or four, or maybe 
more, more or less drowsy officers start and run 
for the Stock Exchange, some eight hundred feet 
away. Is there any especial reason why they 
should be any less exhausted when they get there 
than the two policemen who failed to catch the 
Sixth Avenue thief, or the two who let another on 
First Avenue run clear out of their sight? The 
four blocks the former two policemen ran do not 
make much over eight hundred feet. Suppose 
that three or four, not half -grown fellows like 
"sleepy" Dick, but stalwart desperadoes, used to 
rough work, quietly await the arrival of these wor- 
thy, but well-blown patrolmen. How long would 
it take the thieves to at least check the advance, if 
not also considerably impair the usefulness of men 



HALF-TRAINED FIREMEN AND POLICE. 193 

so nearly gone that they could not speak, and 
whose hands shook so that aiming a revolver ef- 
fectively would be practically out of the question? 

And might not the Press justly have some pretty 
plain comment to make, then, on the physical in- 
efficiency of our police force, and wonder why it 
had not been insisted on long ago that they be 
trained as men have to be in other callings, nntil 
they are fit for their work ? Hear Dr. Morgan, in 
" University Oars," on fat and unwieldy men, and 
their unfitness for emergencies calling for strong 
and quick work : " When, therefore, we hear of a 
man who, at twenty years of age, weighed 12 stone 
(168 pounds), and in after-life inclining to corpu- 
lency, has reached the abnormal weight of 17 or 18 
stone (238 or 252 pounds), we must not consider 
him proportionately stronger: on the contrary, he 
should rather excite our pity and commiseration — 
the five or six stone distributed over his body being 
composed wholly of adipose tissue. He is thus 
as completely enveloped in blubber as though he 
were a whale or a seal. His muscles being heavily 
weighted, his powers of locomotion are necessarily 
limited ; and, handicapped in this manner, it is no 
easy task for him to drag his unwieldy frame on 
some sweltering 12th of August over the trying 
inequalities of a Highland moor." 

The broken- winded man, or a man out of wind, 

13 



194 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

is almost as useless in an emergency calling for 
sharp and sudden work as a broken-winded horse. 
The standing around of the policeman, heavily shod 
and heavily clad, and the lazy, aimless walking, will 
never make him hardy, tough, and difficult to face, 
or likely not to use his club where a strong, quick 
man would never need it. Swollen hands and 
feet, and soft, flabby flesh will be the result ; and 
for the variety of sudden and dangerous work 
which he may be called upon to do at any moment 
he is not half fitted ; and if he trains no more for 
his work than he does now, he never will be. 

Again, in the matter of looks — not the least im- 
portant, by any means, of the qualifications of a 
police-officer — are they all that they might be, and 
that they really ought to be ? 

When a thousand of them, averaging two hun- 
dred pounds apiece, parade down Broadway, with 
brass buttons gleaming, and every belt well filled, 
it is easy enough for Press or citizen to say, "What 
a fine -looking body of men!" But now, notice 
them closely, and most of them are inerect, many 
are round-shouldered, and few are at once thor- 
oughly well-built men and in good condition, being 
either loose-jointed, too fat, or too thin. Contrast 
their marching and bearing with that of the little 
West Point battalion on parade, every man erect, 
clean-cut, precise, wiry, and athletic; light and 



HALF-TRAINED FIREMEN AND POLICE. 195 

young, to be sure, but most hardy, quick, and man- 
ly. Now, we know what it is to be erect. We 
soon discover that the bulk, the sunburn, and the 
uniforms have gone far toward making the favor- 
able impression, which ought to have been better 
based, and that almost every one of these police- 
men is plainly faulty. 

Now, suppose every one of these twenty -five 
hundred men, besides being, as most of them al- 
ready are, both courageous and faithful in the per- 
formance of duty, was a skilful and hard-hitting 
boxer, a good, steady, long-distance runner, a fair 
wrestler, a strong swimmer, a sound, hale, thor- 
oughly well-made man. Let the vicious classes 
once know — and how long would it take them to 
learn ? — that in a race between them and the po- 
liceman the latter would be pretty sure to win ; let 
it be known that, when he once caught his man, 
the odds would be decidedly in his favor, and that 
that man would not get away ; let every member 
of the force be justly known as a formidable man 
to face, and one whom the offender had better 
avoid — and what an advance it would be in both 
the moral and physical efficiency of the force ! 
Now let the riot come, and see what that little 
band of twenty-five hundred trained men could do 
against ten times their number. To-day they have 
nothing which makes them enduring at quick, hard 



196 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC 



work, and that is what is wanted for mobs. If 
they had an abundance of that which would make 
them so, the plying of a locust for an hour or 
two among a lot of unorganized roughs would be 
almost a diversion, and a game they could continue 
at by the week if need be. 

And why should not every city in our land have, 
instead of men very many of them too often far 
out of condition, these same well-trained men, ed- 
ucated, as men have to be in nearly every other 
calling, directly for their work, and all dexterous 
and able? Is it asking too much? The prepa- 
ration necessary to it will not compare in its ex- 
hausting effects with what the war-policeman — the 
soldier, who is not paid a quarter as much — must 
do without a murmur : the long forced marching, 
weighted like a pack-horse, the broken sleep, the 
stinted food, the bad shoes, the long absence from 
home, and the lack of all comforts. Why not in- 
sist on a regime which, if the fat man could go 
through and retain his corporosity, would make him 
welcome to retain it; if the thin man could be up 
to every day's work in it, then he could stand far 
more than he looked equal to ? But if either fail- 
ed, out with him. There need be no fear that 
good substitutes could not be had in abundance. 

This is no question of mere health, and symme- 
try of make, and reasonable strength, as with the 



'HALF-TRAINED FIREMEN AND POLICE. 197 

ordinary citizen. It is a matter of fitness for or- 
dinary duties — duties often of very great impor- 
tance to the public weal, which may spring up at 
any moment, and which call for unusual physi- 
cal resources. It is a matter of substituting for 
dangerous weapons, rashly wielded, and when that 
wielding is often wholly uncalled for, men who, 
in any ordinary street-brawl, need no weapon, and* 
would scarcely think of using one, any more than 
would a Morrissey, a Heenan, or a Hyer. 

As nearly as possible in the centre of each four 
precincts in the larger cities hire a hall, say about 
eighty feet by forty, and the higher the better, w T ell 
lighted and ventilated, and easily heated. Two 
hundred dollars, carefully spent, would buy all 
needed apparatus, and as much more would keep 
it swept and dusted, lighted and warmed. Twen- 
ty-five cents a month from each of four hundred 
policemen would be twelve hundred dollars a 
year, which w^ould cover, beside these items, rent 
and salary of teacher as well. For the teacher 
need be with them but a little while daily; for, 
in about all the exercises necessary to make men 
good ordinary runners and boxers, a teacher tip 
to his work can drill the men in squads. What 
they want is not intricate and technical knowl- 
edge, but plain, straightforward, swift, hard work, 
and plenty of it, and the condition which keeps 



198 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

them easily up to it. Or, better yet, pot these 
gymnasiums in charge of the department, if equal- 
ly rigid economy could be insured. Then require 
each man to spend fifteen minutes there every 
other day, sparring — after he had the rudiments 
— with some companion who can give him all 
the exercise he wants, and on the alternate days 
let an equal period of time be spent in running, 
not at racing pace, but still good lively work of 
the kind which brings good lungs and good legs. 
Now, at the annual or semi-annual athletic meet- 
ing, let picked men from each precinct contend 
in foot-races, both for short and long distances; 
and, to give their work an even more practical 
turn, give some sneak -thief a reasonable start in 
such contests, and let the officers, in full uniform 
of course, catch him if they can. Now the waist- 
bands will begin to lessen, and a considerably small- 
er measure of cloth will cover the man, but it will 
clothe a man who, unarmed and unaided, can whip 
almost half a dozen such flabby, untrained, unskil- 
ful fellows as he used to be. For every duty which 
may at any moment become his, whether light or 
heavy, mild or violent, he will be far better qual- 
ified in almost every respect than before, yet no 
better in his line than any good business man 
requires each person in his employ to be in his, no 
matter what their particular duties may be. 



HALF-TRAINED FIREMEN AND POLICE. 199 



CHAPTER XII. 

SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 

While symmetrical and thorough physical devel- 
opment are not at all common among Americans, 
and undeveloped, inerect, and weak bodies almost 
outnumber any other kind, the general want of fa- 
miliarity with what will develop any given mus- 
cles, and bring them up to the fulness and strength 
which ought to be theirs, is even more surprising. 
If proof is wanted of this, let the reader ask him- 
self what special work he would choose to develop 
any given part ; the muscles of the forearm, for in- 
stance, or those of the front of the chest. If he 
has ever paid any attention to his physical develop- 
ment — and thousands and tens of thousands have 
not — he may know one or two things which will 
bring about the desired result ; but even if he has 
attended the gymnasium a good deal, he will often 
be surprised to find that his time there was main- 
ly spent in accomplishing some particular feat or 
amount of work, rather than in bringing about the 
special development of any given part, or general 
development of the whole body. 



200 HOW TO GET STKONG, ETC. . 

Now, while the exercises which bring any given 
set of muscles into play are very numerous, if a 
few can be grouped together which shall be at 
once simple and plain, and shall call either for in- 
expensive apparatus or none at all, which will also 
enable almost any one, by a little energy and de- 
termination, to bring up any limb or muscles now 
weak, they may prove of value. 

To develoj) the Leg below the Knee. 

The main part of the leg below the knee, for 
instance, is composed of muscles which raise the 
heel. Stand erect, with the head high, chest out, 
and shoulders down, keeping the knees all the 
time well sprung back, having the feet about three 
inches apart, with the toes turned slightly outw r ard. 
Now slowly raise the heels until they are high off 
the floor, and the whole weight rests on the soles 
and toes. Now drop slowly down. Then repeat. 
Next place the hand on the muscles of the calf, 
and while at first not firm, feel them harden as 
you rise, and all doubt as to whether the exercise 
in question uses these muscles will speedily vanish. 
Continue this exercise at the same rate, keeping at 
it until you have risen fifty times. Now, it will 
not be necessary, with most persons, to have to 
place the hand on these muscles to learn if they 
are brought into play, for already that is becoming 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOK ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 201 

very plain in another way, one that is bringing 
most conclusive proof to the mind — internal evi- 
dence it might well be called. Unless the calves 
are unusually strong, long before the one hundredth 
effort there is an unmistakable ache in them, which, 
in the majority of instances, will cause the person 
to stop outright from sheer inability to proceed. 
It has not taken much time to get a pretty thor- 
ough measure of about what power there is in one 
set of muscles at least. All doubts are gone from 
his mind now as to whether one exercise he knows 
will call into play the muscles of his leg below 
the knee or not. It is equally plain that it is not 
his forearm, or upper arm, or the back or front 
of his chest which has been in action, for none of 
these have felt fatigue, the tire being all confined 
to the muscles in question. 

Again, had there been beside him two men of 
nearly the same weight, but one of small and fee- 
ble calves, the other having them shapely and well- 
developed, is there any doubt which of the two 
could have kept at the exercise the longer, yet 
with the less fatigue ? Few men need be told that 
a muscle, unused to work at first, can gradually, 
by direct and systematic exercise, be strengthened ; 
but not a few there are who are unaware that 
with the new strength comes increased size as well. 

Yet, to those familiar with athletic work, it is 



202 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

as plain as that you must have your eyes open if 
you want to see. A gentleman of our acquaint- 
ance, of magnificent muscular and vital develop- 
ment, was not satisfied with the girth of his calves, 
which was 14^ inches. At our suggestion he be- 
gan practising this simple raising and lowering of 
the heels. In less than four months he had in- 
creased the girth of each calf one whole inch. 
When asked how many strokes a day he averaged, 
he said, " From fifteen hundred to two thousand ;" 
varied some days by his holding in each hand dur- 
ing the process a twelve -pound dumb-bell, and 
then only doing one thousand or thereabouts. The 
time he found most convenient was in the morn- 
ing on rising, and just before retiring at night. 
Instead of the work taking much time, seventy a 
minute was found a good ordinary rate, so that fif- 
teen minutes at each end of the day was all he 
needed. But this was a great and very rapid in- 
crease, especially for a man of thirty-five ; far more 
than most persons would naturally be contented 
with, yet suggestive of the stuff and perseverance 
of the man who accomplished it. 

Here, then, one of the most effective exercises 
which could be desired for the strengthening of 
these muscles is accomplished actually without ap- 
paratus, without one cent of expense — one which 
can be practised anywhere, in the largest or the 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 208 

smallest room, in -doors or ontyori land or while 
at sea. 

But there are many other exercises which w r ill 
bring this same development. Now stand erect 
again, with head and chest high, shoulders low, 
and knees sprung back. Start off at an ordinary 
pace, and walk. But, instead of, as usual, putting 
the foot down and lifting it without thinking about 
it, this time, just as it leaves the ground, press hard 
with, the soles and toes. Go on for a block or two, 
and you will suddenly find that your calves are 
having new and unwonted duties — indeed, a very 
generous share of work. Keep on for a mile — 
if you can. Good a walker as you thought your- 
self before, a mile of this sort will be a mile to 
be remembered — certainly for a few days, till the 
ache gets out of your calves. 

If walking with this new push is not hard enougJi 
on flat ground, try it up-hill. It will not be long 
before these muscles will ache till it will seem as 
if you must have a w r hole gymnasium concealed 
in them somewhere. 

Another exercise for the same muscles, which 
can also be learned in a moment, and a little of 
which will suffice at first, is running on the toes, 
or, rather, on the soles and toes. Here the whole 
w r eight is held by, and pushed from, first the mus- 
cles of one calf, then of the other. One will not 



204 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

go far at this without convincing proof of the value 
of this work to the parts in question. 

Of two brothers of our acquaintance — one a 
boy of thirteen, the other a little fellow of four — 
the former walks with no especial spring, and per- 
forms his running flat-footed. But the little fel- 
low, whether walking, standing, or running, is for- 
ever on his toes, and with his knees sprung well 
back. The former has rather slim legs and no 
great calf; the latter beautifully developed calves, 
round, full, and symmetrical, noticeably large for a 
boy of his size and age. 

Again, work, harder, and telling more directly 
on the calves, and hence calculated to increase their 
size and strength faster even than any of these, is 
hopping on one foot — a really grand exercise, and 
one of the speediest for bringing strong legs and 
a springy step. There is not the relief in it that 
there is in walking or running. There the rest is 
nearly twice as long as here. Here the work is 
almost continuous, and soon tires the strongest mus- 
cles. Jumping also exercises these muscles power- 
fully, and, practised steadily, soon brings them up. 
Well developed and strong, these muscles are of 
great value in dancing, adding astonishingly to the 
ease and grace so valued in this accomplishment, 
and to endurance as well. Horseback -riding, 
where the foot is pushed but a little way into the 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 205 

stirrup, and the whole weight thus thrown on the 
toes ; rowing, especially with the sliding seat, where 
the feet press hard against the stretcher; leaping; 
ordinary w r alking uphill, and walking on the toes 
alone — these all call these muscles into most vig- 
orous play, and, when practised steadily and with 
energy, are among the most rapid means known 
for increasing, not the strength of the calves alone, 
but their girth as well. 

Try a summer of mountain climbing. Look at 
the men who spend their lives at it. Notice the 
best stayers in the Alpine clubs, and almost inva- 
riably they are found to have large and powerful 
calves, especially where their knees are not bent 
much in stepping. In a personal sketch of Ben- 
digo, the once celebrated British prize-fighter (now 
a quiet Christian man), much stress w r as laid on the 
fact that his calves measured a clean sixteen inches 
about. Yet, to show that gentlemen are sometimes 
quite as strong in given directions as prize-fighters, 
look at Professor Maclaren's own memorandum of 
not only what a splendid pair of legs he himself had 
at the start, but what a little mountain climbing did 
for them ; for he says that in four months of Al- 
pine walking, averaging nine hours a day, his calves 
w T ent up from sixteen inches to seventeen and a 
quarter! and his thighs from twenty-three and a 
half inches to twenty -five. If instances nearer 



206 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



home are sought, and yet where neither anything 
like the time Maclaren took was given to it, nor 
any of the very severe work of the gentleman 
referred to a little earlier, look at what Dr. Sar- 
gent accomplished, not with one solitary man but 
with two hundred, at Bowdoin College ; not giv- 
ing nine hours a day to it, but only " half an hour 
a day, four times a week, for a period of six 
months." In this very brief time, and by mod- 
erate exercises, he increased the average girth of 
the calf of these whole two hundred men from 
twelve and a half inches, to thirteen and a quarter. 
There was one pupil, working four hours a week 
instead of four half -hours, and for one year instead 
of six months, who increased his calves from thir- 
teen and a half inches to fifteen — an actual gain 
of a quarter of an inch more in two hundred and 
eight hours of exercise, much of which was given 
to other muscles, and did not tell on the calves, 
than Maclaren made in nine hundred hours of 
work, most of which kept these muscles in very 
active play. 

In all exercises for these muscles, indeed in all 
foot-work, shoes should be worn with soles broad 
enough to prevent the slightest cramping of the 
foot, and so giving every part of it its natural play. 

There remains one other prominent muscle be- 
low the knee, that in front, running down along 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 207 

the outer side of the shin-bone. Develop the calf 
fully, as is often done, and omit this little muscle 
and the work which calls it into play, and there is 
something wanting, something the lack of which 
causes a lack of symmetry. Fast walking, when 
one is unused to it, especially when the knees are 
held pretty straight, will work this muscle so vig- 
orously as to make it sore. But a plain, safe, and 
simple exercise for it, yet one which, if protracted, 
will soon swell it into notice, and give it unwonted 
strength and beauty, is effected by stooping down 
as low as possible, the feet being but a few inches 
apart, and the heels never being allow r ed to rise 
even a quarter of an inch off the floor. Lift the 
heels, and this muscle is at once relieved. 

Laying any weight on the foot, and lifting it 
clear from the ground, will also call on this muscle. 
So will fastening the feet into straps, like those on 
a boat- stretcher or rowing-weight, and swaying the 
body of the sitter back and forth; for these muscles 
have heavy work to do to aid in pulling the body 
forward, so that the rower may reach his hands 
out over his toes for a new stroke. Simply stand- 
ing on one foot, first holding the other clear of the 
floor, and then drawing it up as near as possible to 
the front of its owm ankle, and then opening it as 
wide as you can, will be found a safe and reasona- 
bly effective way of bringing forward this small 



208 HOW TO GET STEONG, ETC 



but useful muscle; while walking on the heels, with 
the toes drawn up high, is simpler yet. For those 
who want to run heavy risks, and are not content- 
ed with any exercise whicli does not threaten their 
necks, hanging by the toes from a horizontal or 
trapeze bar will be found to just fill the bill. 

Work for the Front of the Thigh. 

The muscles of the front thigh have a most inti- 
mate connection with those already mentioned, and, 
for ordinary purposes, a fair development of them 
is more necessary than of those below the knee. 
In common walking, for instance, while the calf gets 
something to do, the thigh gets far more, especially 
when the step is low and flat, and the heel never 
raised far from the ground. A man will often have 
large and strong thighs, and yet but indifferent 
calves. A prominent Harvard oarsman, a strong 
and fast walker, and a man of magnificent develop- 
ment in most points, was once examined carefully 
by Greenough, the sculptor. " I should know you 
were an American," said he, " because you have 
no calves ;" and, indeed, his mistake in developing 
splendid arms, and trunk, and thighs, and forget- 
ting all about the calves, is far too common a one 
among our athletes to-day; though the prominence 
they are beginning to give to running helps mend 
matters in this respect. 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 209 

Scarcely any muscles are easier brought into ac- 
tion than these of the upper or front thigh. Stand 
erect, with head and chest high, and the feet about 
six inches apart. Now, bend the knees a little, say 
until the head has dropped vertically six inches. 
Then rise to the perpendicular again. Eepeat a 
few times, and it will not be long till these mus- 
cles will be felt to be in lively action, and this ex- 
ercise prolonged will make them ache. But this 
movement is very much akin to that in dancing, 
the latter being the harder of the two, because the 
weight is first on one foot, then on the other, while 
in the former it is always on both. 

Again, instead of stooping for a few inches only, 
start as before, with head and neck rigidly erect, 
and now stoop all the way down ; then rise again. 
Continue this movement several times, and gener- 
ally at first a few repetitions will be found to be 
quite enough. By-and-by, as the strength increases, 
so should the number; and, if time is to be saved 
and the work condensed, keep dumb-bells, say of a 
tenth of your own weight, in the hands during the 
operation. 

A more severe tax yet is had by holding one 
foot far out, either in front or back, and then 
stooping down wholly on the other foot. Few can 
do this many times, and most persons cannot do it 
at all. For swiftly bringing up a thigh at present 

14 



210 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

weaker than its mate, and so restoring the symme- 
try which should always have been there, this work 
is almost unparalleled. 

Jumping itself, either high or flat, is admirable 
for the thighs. Charles Astor Bristed, in his " Five 
Years in an English University," says that he at 
one time took to jumping, and was astounded at 
the rapid progress he made in a branch of athletics 
at which before he had been no good. Maclaren 
says that hardly any work will quicker bring up 
the whole legs ; but this will probably prove truer 
where a large number of moderate jumps are 
taken dailv, than where a few extreme efforts are 
made. 

Both fast walking and running bring vigorous 
action to these muscles ; slow walking does little 
for them, hence the number of weak, undeveloped 
thighs among men who do little or no quick foot- 
work. A man, too, whose body is light and thin, 
may do a deal of fast walking without greatly en- 
larging his thighs, because they have comparatively 
little to carry. But let him, after first getting thor- 
oughly used to fast and continued walking, carry 
weight awhile, say a twenty-five-pound bag of shot 
or sand, or a small bo} 7 , on his back, or dumb-bells 
in his hands — of course, on a gymnasium track, or 
some other course where his action will be under- 
stood — and he will find that the new work will 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 211 

soon tell, as would, also, long-distance running, 
even though not weighted, as Rowell so eminently 
shows. 

Good, stiff long-distance walking is excellent for 
the front thigh ; but running is better, especially 
when done as it ought to be, namely, not flat-foot- 
ed, but with the heel never touching the ground. 
Any sort of running or walking, at any pace pro- 
tracted enough to bring moderately tired muscles, 
will tell, especially on these in question; while 
severe work over a long distance will give them 
a great task, and the consequent ability and size. 
Many a man may do a little desultory running 
daily, perhaps for a week or two together once a 
year, and not find his thighs enlarge or toughen 
materially. But let him put in a few minutes each 
day, for several months together, at steady smart 
running, as far as he can, and go comfortably, and 
now, besides the work becoming easy, comes the 
desired size and strength as well. The hopping, 
which was so good for the calves, is hardly less so 
for these muscles, and is one of the best possible 
movements to develop them in the shortest time. 

Dancing, long continued, also tells here, as an 
acquaintance of ours found, who used to lead 
the German frequently at Newport ; for, though 
far from being an athlete, he said that he daily 
ran a mile during the season, just to keep his 



212 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

legs in good order for the duties his position de- 
manded. 

A more moderate exercise than the running, 
though not always so available, is walking uphill. 
This, besides, as already mentioned, doing so much 
for the calves, tells directly and markedly on the 
thighs as well. Skating makes a pleasant substi- 
tute for walking during a part of the colder 
months, and, when much distance is covered daily, 
brings strong and shapely thighs. 

The farmer and the laboring man, in all their 
heavier work done stooping over their tasks — such 
as lifting, shovelling, picking, and mowing — use the 
thighs much, but keep them so long fixed in one 
position, with little or no varying exercise to sup- 
ple and limber them and the joints, that both grad- 
ually stiffen, and their instep soon begins to lack 
elasticity, which tendency is too often increased by 
heavy, stiff, and unwieldy boots. 

Swinging forward when rowing, either in a boat 
or at the toe-straps, after first swinging far back, 
takes these upper muscles in a way quite the re- 
verse of their ordinary use, they now aiding to 
pull the whole trunk forward, and so acting like 
two long hooks. 

All lifting of heavy objects from the ground, 
standing in almost any position, tells heavily on 
these muscles, being about the severest momentary 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 213 

test they can have, greater even than in jumping. 
But occasional heavy lifting tends rather to harden 
the muscle than to rapidly increase its size, pro- 
tracted effort at lighter but good-sized weights do- 
ing the latter to better advantage. 

Brisk horseback-riding keeps these muscles very 
actively employed. Every sort of work which calls 
for frequent stooping down does the same. Per- 
sons who take short steps, and many of them, if 
they w T alk with vigor, are likely to have legs thick- 
er and stouter eveiywhere than they w T ho stride 
out far, but make the whole step as easy for them- 
selves as possible. 

Hardly any of the muscles are so useful and 
valuable as these. One may have weak arms and 
trunk, yet with strong thighs he can walk a long 
distance daily, and not be nearly so fatigued as 
those much stronger elsewhere and weaker here, 
and, as many men have little or no other exercise 
than walking, they are often contented with fair 
development here, and practically none of any ac- 
count elsewhere. It is astonishing, too, to notice 
how a man accustomed for years to a poor sham- 
bling sort of a gait will, with strict attention to 
taking a clean and strong step over a certain dis- 
tance daily, with a determination to take no other 
sort of gait, soon improve the strength and shape 
of his thighs. 



214 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

As hopping on one foot is a swift way to de- 
velop the calf, so frequent stooping down as low 
as possible and rising again, daily, at first without 
weights, but eventually with them, is the sure way 
to speedilv enlarge and strengthen the thighs. 

To Enlarge the Under Thigh, 

The muscles of the under thigh do not get near- 
ly so much to do as those in front, in many persons 
seeming almost not to exist. A bad walk, with the 
knees always slightly bent, is partly accountable for 
this ; and a man accustomed to such a walk, and 
trying suddenly to walk erect, with his knees firm- 
ly knit, and bowed slightly back, soon tires and 
aches at the operation, which, to one in the habit 
of walking erect, long ago became natural. 

The exercise already recommended, of pressing 
the sole of the foot hard on the ground just as it 
leaves it, is scarcely more beneficial to the muscles 
of the calf than to these ; likewise walking up- 
hill, that telling finely on them. Standing, as 
does the West Pointer in his setting-up drill, and, 
with knees unbent, trying to touch the floor with 
the hands, tells in this region. Fastening a weight 
of any sort, a dumb-bell or flat-iron, to the ankle, 
say with strap or towel, and raising the foot as 
high up backward and outward as possible, and 
repeating till tired; putting the foot in the han- 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 215 

die of the pulling-weight, and frequently drawing 
it far down; or, standing with back to the wall, 
and placing the heel against the base-board of the 
room, or any solid vertical surface, and pressing 
hard many times — these all tell on this hidden un- 
der muscle, which, small as it is, is a most essential 
one, and especially in looks, while running wdth 
the foot thrown high behind, excels them all. 

To Strengthen the Sides of the Waist. 

But while the legs have been so actively engaged, 
there are other parts which have not been idle, so 
that the same work brings other strength as well. 
In every step taken, and especially every vigorous 
one, as in fast walking or in running, the muscles 
at the sides of the waist have been all the time at 
work, a prominent duty of theirs being to aid in 
holding the body erect. 

Notice a man weak just here, and see his body 
sway a little from side to side as he walks, seem- 
ing to give at the waist. Were such a one to prac- 
tise daily hopping straight ahead, on one foot, and 
then on the other, until he could by -and -by so 
cover half a mile without fatigue, he would find 
his swaying propensity fast disappearing; and if 
he has been troubled with a feeble or unshapely 
waist, that also will have gradually changed, until 
at the end it has become firm and well-set. 



216 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

Take the long balancing-pole of the tight-rope 
walker, and try to walk a rope awhile, or try the 
more simple expedient of walking on the railroad 
rail, and these muscles are at once uncommonly 
busy. Notice the professional tight -rope man, 
and see how strong he is here, especially when to 
the weight of his own body he adds another, as 
did Farini when he carried a man on his shoul- 
ders across the Niagara Kiver; or as the Eastern 
porter, with his huge weight of luggage; or the 
carrier at the meat-market, who shoulders a whole 
side or more of beef and marches off with it. 
These men soon get great and unusual power in 
these side muscles. Wrestling also, whether Cor- 
nish or Grseco-Roman, or indeed almost any sort, 
tells directly and severely here. If one prefers 
to use apparatus made specially, the opposite cut 
shows a simple device of Dr. Sargent's, which he 
made purposely to bring up and strengthen these 
muscles. 

Standing in front of it, with head and neck 
erect and chest out, and grasping the ends of the 
bar A A, the operator simply turns it, first w T ell up 
to the right, then to the left, and then repeats the 
movements until he has enough. As he turns, the 
rubber straps B B stretch more and more, of 
course getting stiffer the farther the bar is turn- 
ed. It would scarcely be possible to hit upon a 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 217 




Fig. 5. 



218 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

better appliance for improving these valuable side 
muscles, and yet without fear of overdoing them. 

The Abdominal Muscles. 

Nor do these include all the muscles which the 
foot- work arouses to action. Take the horizontal 
bands or layers of muscle across the abdomen. 
Every step forward moves them, and the higher 
and more energetic the step, the more they have 
to do. A man who is not strong in these muscles 
will usually have a feeble walk, and very often 
will double forward a little, until he is in about 
the position of the two hands of a clock at two 
minutes past six, giving him the appearance of 
being weak here. But the strong, high step tilts 
the body slightly back, and gives these muscles so 
much to do that they soon grow good at it, and 
shapely and powerful accordingly. 

Another advantage comes from having these 
muscles strong, and from forming the habit of 
stepping as he does who has them so. By walk- 
ing thus erect, the shoulders, instead of pressing 
over on the chest as the man tires, and so cramp- 
ing his breathing, are so habitually held back that 
it is easier to keep them there, and the consequent 
fuller respiration keeps him longer fresh. This is 
very conspicuous in the case of one of the most 
famous pedestrians in the world to-day, its ex- 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 219 

champion long-distance walker, Daniel O'Leary. 
Take him when in good condition, and in one of 
his long tramps ; on the first mile or the four hun- 
dredth, it is always the same : there he is, with head 
up, shoulders well back, and working busily, and — 
the most noticeable thing — the whole centre of the 
body, from the waist to the knees, thrown, if any- 
thing, actually forward of a vertical line, instead of 
as far, or often much farther, back of it ; indeed, 
the point farthest forward is about two inches be- 
low his belt. A fair though not clear idea of what 
is meant can be had from the following sketch of 
him, taken at the time, on the latter part of his 
five -hundred -mile walk with Hughes, "the Lep- 
per," on the track in the Hippodrome, in New 
York city, during the first week of October, 1878. 
Hughes, while proving himself a very tough and 
determined man, showed, as is too often the case 
with professional athletes, great ignorance of many 
things which would have helped him much had 
he known and followed them, and none more, per- 
haps, than this very matter of correct position. 

O'Leary's freshness, no matter how many hun- 
dred miles he has just walked, is remarkable. This 
rational way of carrying the body during a diffi- 
cult feat, besides giving the heart and lungs full 
room for vigorous action, also gives the stomach 
and other vital organs ample play ; for a glance at 



220 



HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 




the sketch shows none of the thinness of flank and 
general sunken-in look at the waist in O'Leary so 
plain in Hughes, and so common among walkers 
in the later miles of the race. 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 221 

Singularly enough, a little boy, only eleven years 
old, and but three feet nine inches high, has cop- 
ied, or rather acquired — for it seems he had never 
seen this sensible step and carriage of O'Leary — 
with astonishing success, as witness the following 
sketch of his performance from the New York 
Herald of October 11th, 1878. Foolish in the ex- 
treme as it is to allow such half-grown youngsters 
to attempt such feats, it is doubtful if the annals 
of -the cinder-path can match such prodigious stay 
and skill in one so young : 

"an embryo o'leary. 

"Between the Grand Central Depot and Madison Avenue and 
Forty-second and Forty-fourth streets is a vacant square, which 
the boys of the neighborhood have been utilizing as a race-track. 
Every day dozens of them may be seen scurrying round the track, 
intent on making the best time ever known. Yesterday afternoon 
a five-mile walk was in progress, which was headed by a very small 
boy, who at once attracted the attention of the by-standers by his 
peculiarly rapid and easy gait. He kept ahead of the other con- 
testants, and finally distanced them by two laps, and won in the 
time of 48m. 2s. 

"After this race, at the request of the lookers-on, he travelled 
around the track once (which is one-seventh of a mile) in lm. and 
15s. He walks very erect, steps like O'Leary, and does not seem to 
be easily fatigued. This time is still more surprising, considering 
that he is only eleven years old and but three feet nine inches high, 
so that he cannot take a very long step. 

"In a conversation with him it was learned that his name was 
Joe Havey, residing at No. 144 East Forty-third Street. He has 
never seen a professional walk, so that his walking ideas are his 



222 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

own. With a little practice he bids fair to become a No. 1 pe- 
destrian." 

But there are other ways of bringing up these 
useful abdominal muscles, equally easy to learn. 

Sit down at the rowing- weights, placing the feet 
in the toe -straps. Now sway the body back and 
forth, and, placing the hand on the muscles in ques- 
tion, feel how they harden. An ordinary bit of 
strap screwed to the base-board of one's room, so 
that each foot shall have a loop of it to go into, 
and then a stool or cassock some eight inches high 
to sit on, save the expense of the rowing-weights, 
yet produce the desired result with these muscles. 

Lie flat on the back, as, for instance, just on 
awaking. Taking first a deep, full breath, draw 
the feet upward, keeping the knees unbent, until 
the legs are vertical. Lower them slowly till hor- 
izontal, then raise again and continue. It will not 
take many minutes — or seconds — to bring these 
muscles enough work for one morning. 

Or this time keep the legs down, and, first fill- 
ing the chest, now draw the body up until you are 
sitting erect. Then drop slowly back, and repeat. 
This will be likely to take even less time than did 
the other, but it will tell tremendously on these 
muscles. Indeed, most people are so weak in 
them, that they can hardly do this once. Yet men 
who have them strong and well -trained will lie 



' SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 223 

flat on their backs on the floor or gymnasium mat, 
and while some one holds their ankles, taking a 
two-hundred-pound man, lying across their chest 
at right angles with it, will raise him several times 
till they are in erect sitting posture. 

Sitting on one of the parallel bars in the gym- 
nasium, and placing both feet under the other, and 
now dropping the body back until it is horizontal, 
then rising to vertical and repeating, is very hard 
work for these abdominal muscles, and should only 
be practised by those already strong here. 

These muscles are brought into direct and vig- 
orous play in rowing, to such an extent that no 
man who has them weak can be a fast oarsman 
over any ordinary racing distance. Indeed, this 
is the very region where young rowers, otherwise 
strong, and seemingly fit for hard, fast work, give 
out first. 

Every time the foot is raised in running, these 
muscles are called to active duty far more than 
in walking, and the high, strong, sharp step works 
them severely, so that no man weak here could be 
a fast runner with good action. Jumping, vault- 
ing, leaping, all bring them into sudden, spasmod- 
ic, almost violent action. Let a man mow awhile, 
when unused to it, and see how soon it tells across 
this region, the muscles aching next day from the 
twisting motion, 



224 HOW TO GET STKONG, ETC. 

The latest invention purposely for these muscles 
is also one of Sargent's, on the following plan : 
The pupil lies on the plank A A', or, rather, sits 
on it, when A 7 is a little back of vertical, so as, 
for instance, to form with A the angle A B A'. 
With feet in the toe-straps C C, he sways gently 
forward and back as long as he can without fa- 
tigue. From day to day, as these muscles gain 
strength, A' is dropped lower and lower, until final- 
ly it is on a level with A. Or a strap may be 
placed over the forehead and fastened to A', and, 
with the feet in the toe-straps, the person may lift 
his body up till vertical, drawing the weight E with 
him as he rises. 

Counterwork for the Abdominal Muscles. 

But nearly all the exercises just named for the 
abdominal muscles, while they make them strong 
and handsome, tend to contract rather than length- 
en them ; and for men of sedentary life inclined 
to stoop a little forward while sitting, some work 
is needed which shall stretch these muscles, and 
aid in restoring them to their natural length. 

Stand erect. Now gradually draw the head and 
shoulders backward until as far past the vertical as 
possible. Return slowly to erect position. In the 
drawing back, these muscles were stretched to a 
greater length than usual, and in those who accus- 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 225 




15 



226 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

torn themselves to drawing far back in this way, 
like the contortionists of the circus, these muscles 
grow wonderfully elastic, such men being able not 
only to touch their heads to their heels, but now 
and then to go farther yet, and drink water from 
a tumbler set between their feet. 

But while there is no need of such extreme 
work, moderate performance in this way directly 
tends to stretch and lengthen muscles which, in 
the great majority of people, are somewhat cramp- 
ed and shortened by habitual standing, sitting, or 
lying, with the back either flat or almost curved 
outward, instead of slightly hollowed in, and with 
the consequent sinking of the chest. All work 
above the head, such as swinging clubs, or an 
axe or sledge; putting up dumb-bells, especially 
w T hen both hands go up together; swinging by the 
hands from rope or bar, or pulling the body up till 
the chin touches the hands ; standing with back to 
the pulley -weights, and taking the handles in the 
hands, and, starting with them high over the head., 
then pushing the hands far out forward ; standing 
two or more feet from the wall, and, placing the 
hands side by side against it about as high up as 
your shoulders, then throwing the chest as far for- 
ward as possible ; the hauling down ropes by the 
sailor; the ceiling- work of the plasterer and the 
painter, and the like — these all do excellent service 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 227 

in bringing to these important muscles the length 
and elasticitj- they ought to have, and so contribut- 
ing materially to the erect carriage of the body. 
All kinds of pushing with the hands, such as one 
does in putting them against any heavy substance 
and trying to push it before him, striking out in 
boxing, in fencing, or single-stick, with dumb-bells, 
or in swimming, are capital ; while the drawing of 
the head and shoulders back swiftly, as in boxing 
to avoid a blow, can hardly be surpassed as an aid 
in this direction. 

To enlarge and give Power to the Loins. 

Before leaving the waist, there is one more set 
of muscles which demand attention ; and if one has 
them weak, no matter how strong he may be else- 
where, he is weak in a place where he can ill af- 
ford to be, and that is in the loins, or the main 
muscles in the small of the back, running up and 
down at each side of the spine. In many of the 
heavier grades of manual labor these muscles have 
a large share of work to do. All stooping over, 
when lifting is done with a spade, or fork, or bar. 
whether the knees are held straight or bent, or 
lifting any weight directly in the hands, horizontal 
pulling on a pulley-weight, rope, or oar — in short, 
nearly every sort of work where the back is ac- 
tively employed, keeps these muscles thoroughly 



228 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

active. You cannot bend over without using them. 
Weed awhile, and, unless already strong in the 
loins, they will ache. 

A laboring man weak here would hardly be 
worth hiring. A rowing- man weak here could 
never be a first-rate oar till he had trained away 
the weakness. Heenan, with all his grand phy- 
sique, his tremendous striking- power, his massive 
development above the waist, would not have 
made nearly as enduring an oar as the sturdier, 
barrel -chested Morrissey, or as the broad -loined 
Renforth did make. Strong loins are always de- 
sirable. He who has them, and is called on in any 
sudden emergency to lift any heavy weight, as the 
prostrate form of one who has fallen in a swoon, 
for instance, is far less likely to work himself se- 
rious, if not permanent, injury here than he who 
has them untrained and undeveloped. 

Development above the Waist, 

Little or no work has been suggested, so far, 
aimed purposely to develop any muscles above the 
waist. Indeed, it is no uncommon thing, espe- 
cially among Englishmen, to find a man of very 
strong legs and waist, yet with but an indifferent 
chest and shoulders, and positively poor arms. 
Canon Kingsley had discovered this when he said 
to the British clergy, " I should be ashamed of be- 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 229 

ing weak. I could not do half the little good I do 
here if it were not for that strength and activity 
which some consider coarse and degrading. Many 
clergymen would half kill themselves if they did 
what I do. And though they might walk about as 
much, they would neglect exercise of the arms and 
chest, and become dyspeptic or consumptive." 

Let us look at a few things which would have 
proved useful to the brave canon's pupils. The 
connection between the arms and the muscles, both 
on the front and back of the chest, is so close that 
it is practically impossible to have arms thorough- 
ly developed, and not have all the trunk muscles 
above the waist equally so. Fortunately, as in 
foot-work, the exercises to develop these muscles, 
without having to resort to expensive apparatus, or 
often to any at all, are very numerous. 

With a pair of dumb-bells, at first weighing not 
over one-twenty-fifth of what he or she does who 
uses them, and gradually, as the strength increases, 
substituting larger ones, until they weigh, say, one- 
tenth of his or her weight, there is scarcely a mus- 
cle above the belt which cannot, by steady and 
systematic work of never over half an hour daily, 
be rounded and strengthened up to what it ought 
to be in a thoroughly developed, strong, and ef- 
ficient person of its owner's sex, size, and age. 



230 HOW TO GET STKONG, ETC. 

Filling out the Shoulders and Upper Back. 

Notice now what these dumb-bells can do for 
the shoulders and upper back. 

Stand erect again, with the chin up and chest 
high (in all these exercises stand erect where it is 
possible), and have the dumb-bells in the hands 
hanging easily at the sides. Now carry them 
slowly backward and upward, keeping the arms 
straight at the elbows, and parallel, until the hands 
are about as high as they can well go. Hold them 
there a moment, then drop them slowly to the 
sides. Do it again, and keep on until you begin 
to feel like stopping. Note the spot where you 
feel it, and you will find that the under or inner 
muscles of the part of the back-arm which is above 
the elbow, also those on the shoulder-blade, and the 
large muscles of the back directly under the arms, 
have been the ones in action. Laying one dumb- 
bell down, now repeat the above exercise with the 
remaining one, say in the right hand, this time 
placing the left hand on the back just under the 
right arm, or on the inner portion of the triceps or 
upper muscle of that right arm. These muscles 
will be found vigorously at work, and hardening 
more and more the higher the bell is carried or 
the longer it is held up. 

A little of this work daily, begun with the light- 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 231 

er dumb-bells, and increased gradually by adding 
to the number of strokes, or taking larger bells, or 
both, and long before the year is out, if the person 
is steady and persevering at it, decided increase 
in the strength, size, and shapeliness of the upper 
back will follow. 

What has been thus done with the dumb-bells 
could have been done nearly or quite as well with 
any other small, compact body of the same weight 
which could be easily grasped by the hands, such 
as a pair of window -weights, flat-irons, cobble- 
stones, or even chairs, whichever were convenient. 
Where there's a will there's a way ; and if one real- 
ly means to get these or any other muscles strong 
and handsome, the w T ay is really surprisingly sim- 
ple and easy. 

Now, instead of using the dumb-bells, stand 
erect, facing the pulley-weights at the gymnasium, 
or at home if you have them, taking care only that 
they weigh at least what the dumb-bells would. 
Grasping the handles, draw them far back and up, 
the hands, in other words, doing precisely what 
they did with the bells, and the same results will 
follow. 

Rowing, either at the oar or the rowing- weights, 
would have told equally hard on these muscles, 
and, as already pointed out, on many others be- 
sides, the weight of the body itself aiding the de- 



232 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

velopment as it would not with the bells or weights. 
It would also broaden the shoulders and spread 
them apart, more, perhaps, than almost any other 
known exercise. But, like any other single exer- 
cise calling certain muscles into play and leav- 
ing others idle, taken as substantially one's only 
exercise, as is too often the case with rowing-men, 
it brings a partial and one-sided development, mak- 
ing the parts used look too large for the rest, the 
fact being that the rest have not been brought up 
as fast as the former. Unless one's chest is unu- 
sually broad and strong, and often, even if it is, 
constant rowing warps his shoulders forward, and 
tends directly to make him a round-shouldered 
man,* while the upper arm, or that part above the 
elbow, has had practically no development, the in- 
ner part of the triceps or back -arm alone being 
called to severe duty, but the bulk being almost 
idle. Courtney, the greatest sculler the United 
States has yet produced — a large man, standing 
six feet and half an inch in height, strongly made 
in most parts, and weighing ordinarily nearly a 
hundred and ninety— is a good instance of how 
rowing does little for the upper arm ; for while 
his forearm is almost massive, measuring exactly 
thirteen inches in girth, the upper arm, doubled 

* See Fig. 1, on page 36. 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 233 

up, barely reaches fourteen. A well-proportioned 
arm, of which the forearm girths thirteen, should 
measure above all fifteen and a quarter. Again, 
while Courtney's forearm feels sinewy and hard, 
the upper is not nearly so hard, and does not give 
the impression of having seen very stiff service. 
His chest, too, is not so large by over two inches 
as ought to go with a thirteen-inch forearm. 

Beside these exercises with the dumb-bells, the 
weights, and the oar, all the vocations which cause 
one to stoop over much and lift — such as most of 
those of the farmer, the laborer, and of the artisan 
in the heavier kinds of work — tell on these same 
muscles of the upper back and the inner side of 
the triceps, too often bringing, as already pointed 
out, a far better back than front, and so injuring 
the form and carriage. Lifting heavy weights 
where one stands nearly erect, as when practising 
on the lifting-machine, pulls very heavily on the 
extreme upper muscles of the back, those sloping 
off downward from the back of the neck to the 
shoulders. 

To obtain a good Biceps. 

Starting with the dumb-bells down at the sides, 
as before, raise them slowly and steadily in front 
until they nearly touch the shoulder — technically, 
" curl " them— holding the head up, the neck rig- 



234 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

idly erect, and the chest expanded to its very ut- 
most. Now lower the bells slowly to the sides 
again, and repeat, and so continue. In a very few 
minutes, often less than three, you will want to 
stop. The biceps muscles, or those forming the 
front of the upper arms, are getting the work this 
time, and by applying to that of one arm in action 
the hand of the other, it is at once found that this 
muscle is growing quite hard. 

If no dumb-bell or other convenient weight is at 
hand, place one hand in the other, and bear down 
hard with the upper hand, holding the chest stub- 
bornly out. Lift away with the lower hand, and, 
w 7 hen it reaches the shoulder, lower it slowly to 
the side, and then raise again, and so continue. 
This will be found a good thing to know r when a 
person is travelling, or away from home, and can- 
not readily get at such apparatus as he has in his 
own room. 

Now stand erect in front of and facing the pul- 
ley-weights, and at about arm's-length from them ; 
draw the hand horizontally in until it is close to 
the shoulder; let the weight drop slowly back, 
and then draw it to you again, and so go on. This 
is splendid w r ork for the biceps, and will soon be- 
gin to swell and strengthen it ; and then either in- 
creased weight, or more strokes daily, is all that 
will be needed. 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 235 

Fasten a stout hook in a beam overhead, and 
hang a pulley to it. Run a rope through this, at 
one end of which you can attach weights, and tie 
the other to the middle of a thick cane or other 
stick, taking care to have the rope of such a 
length in all, that when the weight is on the floor 
the stick is about a foot above your head. 

Begin with, say, one of your dumb-bells of not 
over one -tenth of your own weight. Grasping 
the stick with both hands, with their palms toward 
you, draw it downward until level with your chin ; 
then let it go back ; repeat, and continue till you 
begin to tire. If the single bell seems too light, 
attach both bells. After a few daj T s with these, 
fasten on a basket or coal -hod, and increase the 
load until, say at the month's end, it weighs over 
half of what you do. If you can take this up a 
number of times without ache or ill-feeling, you 
are strong enough to take hold of a fixed bar and 
attempt to haul yourself up, as Mr. Bryant did,* 
until your chin touches your hand. But without 
this preliminary work, such pulling up, frequently 
as it is attempted, is a foolish and hazardous ex- 
periment, throwing a great strain on muscles quite 
unused to such a task, namely, on these very biceps 
muscles. 

* See page 170. 



236 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

If, on the other hand, one has these muscles 
already strong, and can with ease pull himself up 
six or eight times, he will find this stick and weight 
an excellent affair for training the biceps of one 
arm, until it gets strong enough to pull him up 
without the other arm at all. For this simple and 
valuable contrivance the public is also indebted to 
Dr. Sargent, who is a regular Edison in devising 
simple and sensible gymnastic appliances, which 
he freely gives to all without patenting them. 

Mounting a ladder or a rope hand -over -hand; 
lifting any weight in front of you, whether a 
feather or a barrel of sugar; picking up anything 
from the floor; holding weights out in front, or 
at your side, at arm's-length ; pulling downward on 
a rope, as in hauling up a sail; hammering — in 
short, anything which bends the elbow and draws 
the hand in toward the shoulder, takes the biceps 
muscle ; and, if the work is vigorous and persisted 
in, this muscle will ere long become strong and 
well-shaped. 

To bring up the Muscles on the Front and Side 
of the Shoulder. 

For the muscles on the front and side of the 
shoulder, holding out weights at arm's-length, ei- 
ther at the side or in front, will be found just what 
is wanted, the arms being horizontal, or the hands 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 237 

being held rather higher than that, the elbows 
remaining unbent. Holding the mere weight of 
the hands, as in boxing, but keeping at it awhile, 
keeps these parts well occupied ; while the sword, 
or foil, or single -stick, freely plied, or the axe or 
bat, tell directly here. 

Forearm Work. 

Very many of these exercises for the biceps and 
shoulder have also called on the forearm, while 
those mentioned for the inner triceps have done 
the same. Very prominent among the latter is 
rowing, much of it soon bringing a strong fore- 
arm, especially on the inner and under side. Any- 
thing which necessitates shutting the hand, or 
keeping it partly or wholly shut ; such as holding 
anything heavy in it, driving, chopping, fencing, 
single -stick, pulling one's self up with one hand 
or both, batting, lacrosse, polo, twisting the dumb- 
bells around when at arm's-length, or a chair, or 
cane, or foil, or sword, or broom -handle, if the 
dumb-bells are not convenient, carrying a weight 
in the hand, using any of the heavier mechanical 
hand-tools — all these, and more of their sort, will 
enlarge and strengthen the forearm, and will do 
much also for the hand. Probably the hardest 
work for the forearm, and that calling for the 
greatest strength here, is lifting very heavy weights 



238 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

suspended from a stick, bar, or handles which the 
hands grasp. 

Exercises for the Triceps Muscles. 

One prominent part of the arm remains, or, rath- 
er, one which ought to be prominent, though in 
most persons, both men and women, it is not. In 
boys and girls it is even less so. We refer to the 
rest of the triceps, or the bulk of what remains of 
the upper arm after leaving out the biceps and the 
inner side of the triceps. When well developed, 
this is one of the handsomest parts of the arm. 
No arm will look slim which has this muscle fully 
developed. 

To bring that development, push with the hands 
against almost any heavy or solid thing you want 
to. If these muscles are small and weak, push the 
dumb-bells up over your head as much as you can 
daily, till a month's work has given them a start. 
For two or three minutes each day during that 
month, stand facing the wall, and about two feet 
from it. Now fall against it, or, rather, put your 
hands on it, about three feet apart and as high as 
your ears, and let your body drop in toward the 
wall till your chest nearly touches it, your face be- 
ing held up and back. Then push sharply back till 
your body is again erect, and continue the move- 
ment. This exercise is as admirable as it is cheap. 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 239 

If the triceps muscles are tolerably strong in the 
start, or in any case at the end of the month in 
which the last two exercises have been practised, 
try now a harder thing. Place the hands on the 
floor, hold the body out at full length and rigid, 
or as nearly so as you can, and push, raising the 
body till the elbows are straight. Now bend the 
elbows and lower again, till the face nearly touches 
the floor, keeping the body all the time as stiff and 
straight as possible, and then rise on stiff elbows 
again, and so on. If this is not hard enough work 
for the ambitious aspirant for stout triceps, he can 
vary it by clapping his hands between the dips, 
just as his face is farthest from the floor, though 
in such case it is sometimes well to have a nose 
accustomed to facing difficulty. 

So far, in this work for the back-arm the hands 
at first held merely the weight of the dumb-bells; 
then, as they pressed against the wall, they had to 
bear part of the weight of the body, but not a large 
part, as that rested mainly on the feet. In the 
pushing from the floor the hands bore still more 
of it, but yet the feet had quite a share. Now try 
something where the hands and arms cany the en- 
tire weight of the body. Get up on the parallel 
bars, or on the bars in your door-jambs,* or, if no 

* See page 92. 



240 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

bars are convenient, place two stout chairs back to 
back, and then draw them about eighteen or twen- 
ty inches apart, and, placing one hand on each, 
holding the arms straight, lift the feet off the floor. 
Now lower till the chin is level with the hands, or 
nearly so, and then rise till the arms are straight, 
and then dip again, and so on, the knees and feet 
of course never resting on anything. Now you 
have one of the best known exercises for bringing 
quick development and good strength to the tri- 
ceps or back- arm. When by steady daily trial 
you have gradually increased the number until you 
can do twenty-five fair dips without great effort, 
you have strong triceps muscles, and, if you have 
two legs and a reasonably heavy body to lift, good- 
sized ones at that. Most of your friends cannot 
manage five dips respectably, many scarcely one. 
But, lest you should feel too elated over your 
twenty -five, bear in mind that one gentleman in 
New York has accomplished over eighty without 
stopping, and this though he weighs upward of 
one hundred and eighty pounds; and if a reason- 
ably accurate idea of what sort of back-arms were 
necessary for this marvellous feat, it may be had 
by observing the cut on the cover of this book. 
With a forty-four inch chest, his upper arm meas- 
ures thirteen and a half inches down (half an inch 
more than Heenan's), and sixteen up, though he is 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 241 

but five feet ten inches in height, while Heenan 
stood four inches taller. He says that as surely 
as the ability exists to make many dips, so surely 
will there be a large back-arm, and it was hard 
work that brought him his. Slim arms may push 
up heavy dumb-bells once or twice, but it takes 
thick ones for sustained effort at smaller, though 
good-sized ones. 

To Strengthen and Develop the Hand, 

Very many of the exercises so useful in strength- 
ening the forearm were at the same time improv- 
ing the grip of the hand. But an evil of so much 
gripping or drawing the hand together is that, un- 
less there is an equal amount of w T ork to open and 
flatten it, it tends to become hooked. Notice the 
rowing-man's hand, and the fingers nearly always, 
when at rest, are inclined to be doubled in, as if 
half clutching something ; and very often, where 
they have seen years of rowing, their joints get so 
set that the fingers cannot be bent back nearly as 
far as other people's. Some of the pushing exer- 
cises mentioned above for the triceps tend to coun- 
teract this, notably that where the fingers or the 
flat of the hands are pressed against the wall. An 
admirable exercise in this direction is, when you 
practice the pushing up from the floor for the tri- 
ceps, to only touch the floor with the ends of the 

16 



2i2 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

fingers and thumbs, never letting the palm of the 
hand touch it at all. This will soon help to rectify 
many a hand now rather cramped and contracted, 
besides bringing new strength and shape to the 
fingers. 

To make any particular finger strong, attach a 
strap to the bar referred to on page 235, and 
placing that finger in the strap begin with rais- 
ing a small weight from the floor until you have 
drawn your hand down to your chin; then from 
day to day gradually increase both the weight and 
the number, until, before a great while, you may 
find that you can raise an equivalent of your own 
weight. Now attach the strap to any stationary 
object as high above your head as you can com- 
fortably reach, say a horizontal bar, and pull your- 
self up till your chin touches your hand. Some 
gymnasts can do this several times with the little 
finger. 

Just where the thumb joins the palm, and be- 
tween it and the forefinger on the back of the 
hand, is a muscle which, while at first usually 
small, can be developed and enlarged by any ex- 
ercise which necessitates pinching the ends of the 
thumb and forefinger together, such as carrying a 
plate of metal or other thin but heavy substance 
between the finger and thumb. Harder work 
yet, calling on both this muscle and a number of 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 243 

others of the hand, consists in catching two two- 
inch beams running overhead, as in the ceiling of 
a cellar, and about a foot and a half or two feet 
apart, and walking along, sustaining the whole 
weight by the grip, first of one hand, then of the 
other. He who can do this has very unusual 
strength of fingers. 

For improving the ordinary grip of the hand, 
simply taking a rubber ball in it, or a wad of any 
elastic material, and even of paper, and repeatedly 
squeezing it, will soon tell. Simpler yet is it to 
just practice opening and shutting the hand firmly 
many times. An athletic friend of ours says that 
the man of his whole acquaintance who has the 
strongest grip got it just by practising this exercise. 

To Enlarge and Strengthen the Front of the 

Chest. 

Every one of the exercises for the biceps tells 
also on the pectoral muscles, or those on the front 
of the upper part of the chest, for the two work so 
intimately together that he who has a large biceps 
is practically sure to have the adjoining pectoral 
correspondingly large. 

But there is other work which tells on them be- 
sides biceps work. Whenever the hands push hard 
against anything, and so call the triceps muscles 
into action, these muscles at once combine with 



244 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



them. In the more severe triceps work, such as 
the dips, the strain across these chest-muscles is 
very great, for they are then a very important fac- 
tor in helping to hold up the weight of the whole 
body. This fact suggests the folly of letting any 
one try so severe a thing as a dip, when his triceps 
and pectoral muscles have not been used to any 
such heavy work. Many a person who has rashly 
attempted this has had to pay for it with a pain 
for several days at the edge of the pectoral, where 
it meets the breast-bone, until he concluded he 
must have broken something. 

Working with the dumb-bells w T hen the arms 
are extended at right angles w T ith the body, like a 
cross, and raising them up and down for a foot 
or so, is one of the best things for the upper edge 
of the pectorals, or that part next to the collar- 
bone. 

This brings us to a matter of great importance, 
and one often overlooked. Whoever knows many 
gymnasts, and has seen them stripped or in exer- 
cising costume, must occasionally have observed 
that, while they had worked at exercises which 
brought up these pectoral muscles until they were 
almost huge, their chests under their muscles had 
somehow not advanced accordingly. Indeed, in 
more than one instance which has come under our 
observation, the man looked as though, should you 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 245 

scrape all these great muscles completely off, leav- 
ing the bare framework, he would have actually a 
small chest, much smaller than many a fellow who 
had not much muscle. There hangs to-day — or 
did some time since — on the wall of a well-known 
New York gymnasium, a portrait of a gymnast 
stripped above the w r aist, which shows an exact 
case in point. The face of such a man is often a 
weak one, lacking the strength of cheek-bone and 
jaw so usual in men of great vitality and sturdi- 
ness — like Morrisse} 7 , for instance — and there is a 
general look about it as if the man lacked vitality. 
Many a gymnast has this appearance, for he takes 
so much severe muscular work that it draws from 
his vitality, and gives him a stale and exhausted 
look, a very common one, for example, among men 
w r ho remain too long in training for contest after 
contest of an athletic sort. 

The getting up, then, of a large chest, and of 
large muscles on the chest, while often contempo- 
rary, and each aiding the other, are too frequently 
wholly different matters. 

(Vnd how is the large chest to be had ? 

To Broaden and Deepen the Chest itself. 

Anything which causes one to frequently fill his 
lungs to their utmost capacity, ancl then hold them 
full as long as he can, tends directly to open his 



246 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

ribs, stretch the intercostal muscles, and so expand 
the chest. Many kinds of vigorous muscular ex- 
ercise do this when done correctly, for they cause 
the full breathing, and at the same time directly 
aid in opening the ribs. It will be observed that 
frequently throughout these hints about exercising, 
endeavor has been made to impress on the reader 
that, when exercising, he should hold the head and 
neck rigidly erect, and the chest as high as he can. 
A moment's thought will show why. He, for in- 
stance, who "curls" a heavy dumb-bell, but does 
it with his head and shoulders bent over — as many 
do — while giving his pectorals active work, is act- 
ually tending to cramp his chest instead of expand- 
ing it, the very weight of the dumb-bell all pull- 
ing in the wrong direction. Now, had he held him- 
self rigidly erect, and, first expanding his chest to 
its utmost by inhaling all the air he possibly could, 
and holding it in during the effort — a most valua- 
ble practice, by-the-way, in all feats calling for a 
great effort — he would not only have helped to ex- 
pand his chest, but would find, to his gratification, 
that he had hit upon a wrinkle which somehow 
made the task easier than it ever was before. 

Holding the head and neck back of the vertical, 
say six inches, w T ith the face pointing to the ceiling, 
and then working with the dumb-bells at arm's- 
length, as above referred to, is grand for the upper 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 247 

chest, tending to raise the depressed collar-bones 
and the whole upper ribs, and to make a person 
hitherto flat-chested now shapely and full; while 
the benefit to lungs perhaps formerly weak would 
be hard to over-estimate. 

Steady and protracted running is a great auxil- 
iary in enlarging the lung-room. So is plenty of 
sparring. So is the practice of drawing air slowly 
in at the nostrils until every air-cell of the lungs is 
absolutely full, then holding it long, and then ex- 
pelling it slowly. Most public singers and speak- 
ers know T the value of this and kindred practices 
in bringing, with increased diaphragmatic action, 
improved power and endurance of voice. 

Spreading the parallel bars until they are near- 
ly three feet apart, and doing such arm-w r ork on 
them as you can, but with your body below and 
face downward, helps greatly in expanding the 
chest. So does swinging from the rings or bar 
overhead, or high parallels, and remaining on 
them as long as you can. 

Dr. Sargent's ingenuity has provided a simple 
and excellent chest expander. He rigs two or- 
dinary pulleys over blocks some feet above the 
head, and from five to six feet apart, as in Fig. 8, 
and attaching weights at the floor ends of the 
ropes, puts ordinary handles on the other ends, 
and has the ropes just long enough so that when 



248 



HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



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SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 249 

the weights are on the floor the handles are about 
a foot above the head. Now stand between and 
directly under them, erect, with the chest as full 
as you can make it, and keeping the elbows straight, 
and grasping the handles draw your hands slowly 
downward out at arms-length, say about two feet. 
Next, let the weights drop gradually back, repeat, 
and so go on. This is excellent for enlarging the 
whole chest, but especially for widening it. A 
better present to a consumptive person than one 
of these appliances could hardly be devised. 

Again, to deepen the chest from front to back, 
he hangs two bars, B and C, as in Fig. 9, and at- 
taches the weight at the other end, A, of the rope, 
the bar B, when at rest, being about a foot above 
the height of the head. Standing, not under B, 
but about a foot to one side of it, and facing it, 
grasp its ends with both hands, and keeping the 
arms and legs straight and stiff, and breathing the 
chest brimful, draw downward until the bar is 
about level with the waist. Let the weight run 
slowly back, repeat, and go on. 

A great advantage of both these contrivances, 
besides their small cost and simplicity, is that, as 
in nearly everything Dr. Sargent has invented, you 
can graduate the weight to suit the present require- 
ments of the person, however weak or strong he or 
she may be, and so avoid much risk of overdoing. 



250 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



V 



V" 




Fig. 9. 



SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES. 251 

In the exercises above named it will be noticed 
that there has been a sufficient variety for any 
given muscles to bring them within the reach of 
all. After this, how far any one will go in any de- 
sired line of development is a matter he can best 
settle for himself. What allowance of work to 
take daily will be treated of in the next chapter. 



252 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 

An endeavor has been made thus far to point 
out how wide-spread is the lack of general bodily 
exercise among classes whose vocations do not call 
the muscles into play, and, again, how local and cir- 
cumscribed is that action even among those who 
are engaged in most kinds of manual labor. Va- 
rious simple exercises have been described which, 
if followed steadily and persistently, will bring 
size, shape, and strength to any desired muscles. 
It may be well to group in one place a few move- 
ments which will enable any one to know at once 
about what amount and sort of work is to be taken 
daily. Special endeavor will be made to single 
out such movements as will call for no expensive 
apparatus. Indeed, most of these want no appa- 
ratus at all, and hence will be within the reach 
of all. As it has been urged that the school is 
the most suitable place to accustom children to 
the kind and amount of work they particularly 
need, a few exercises will first be suggested which 
any teacher can learn almost at once, but which 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 253 

yet, if faithfully taught to pupils, will soon be 
found to take so little time that, instead of inter- 
fering with other lessons, they will prove a posi- 
tive aid. Though perhaps imperceptible at the 
outset, in a few years, with advancing develop- 
ment, the gain made will be found not only to be 
decided, but of the most gratifying character. 

Daily Work for Children. 

Suppose the teacher has a class of fifty. If the 
aisles of the school-room are, as they should be, at 
least two feet wide, let the children at about the 
middle of the morning, and again of the afternoon 
session, stand in these aisles in rows, so that each 
two of the children shall be about six feet apart. 
Let the first order be, that all heads and necks be 
held erect. Once these are placed in their right 
position, all other parts of their bodies at once fall 
into place. The simplest way to insure this is to 
direct that every head and neck be drawn hori- 
zontally back, with the chin held about an inch 
above the level, until they are an inch or two back 
of the vertical. Now raise the hands directly over 
the head, and as high as possible, until the thumbs 
touch, the palms of the hands facing to the front, 
and the elbows being kept straight. Now, with- 
out bending the elbows, bring the hands down- 
ward in front toward the feet as far as can com- 



254 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC 



fortably be done, generally at first about as low as 
the knee, taking care to keep the knees themselves 
absolutely straight ; indeed, if possible, bowed even 
back. Now return the hands high over the head, 
and then repeat, say six times. This number twice 
a day for the first week will prove enough ; and it 
may be increased to twelve the second week, and 
maintained at that number thereafter, care being 
taken to assure two things: one, that the knees 
are never bent; the other that, after the first week, 
the hands are gradually brought low T er down, un- 
til they touch the toes. Some persons, familiar 
with this exercise, can, with the knees perfectly 
firm and straight, lay the whole flat of the hands 
on the floor in front of their feet. But after the 
first week, reaching the floor with the finger-tips 
is enough for the end sought, which is, namely, 
to make the pupil stand straight on his feet, and 
to remove all tendency toward holding the knees 
slightly bent, and so causing that weak, shaky, 
and sprung look about the knees, so very common 
among persons of all ages, to give way to a proper 
and graceful position. 

Let the pupils now stand erect, this time with 
backs not bent forward, but with the body abso- 
lutely vertical. Raise the hands above the head 
as before, elbows straight, till the thumbs touch. 
Now, never bending body or knees a hair's-breadth, 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 255 

and keeping the elbows unbent, bring the hands 
slowly down, not in front this time, but at the sides 
just above the knees, the little finger and the inner 
edge of the hand alone touching the leg, and the 
palms facing straight in front. Now notice how 
difficult it is to warp the shoulders forward even 
an inch. The chest is out, the head and neck are 
erect, the shoulders are held low, the back vertical 
and hollowed in a little, and the knees straight. 
Carry the hands slowly back through the same 
line till again high over the head. Then bring 
them down to the sides again, and do six of these 
movements twice each day the first week, and 
twelve afterward. 

While exercises aimed at any given muscles 
have been mentioned elsewhere, any one might 
follow them all up until every muscle was shapely 
and strong, and still carry himself awkw T ardly, and 
even in a slouchy and slovenly manner. This last- 
named exercise is directlv intended to obviate this. 

%> 

If steadily practised, it is one of the very best 
known exercises, as it not only gives strength, but 
a fine, erect carriage. The whole frame is so held 
that every vital organ has free scope and play- 
room, and their healthier and more vigorous ac- 
tion is directly encouraged. This is one part, 
indeed the chief exercise, in the West Pointer's 
"setting-up drill;" and all who have ever seen 



256 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

the cadets at the Point will at once recall how ad- 
mirably they succeed in acquiring and retaining a 
handsome carriage and manly mien. 

To vary the work a little, and to bring special 
development to particular muscles, now let the pu- 
pil stand with arms either hanging easily at the 
sides, or else held akimbo, the head and neck al- 
ways erect, with the heels about four inches apart, 
and the toes turned outward. Raise the heels 
slowly off the floor, the soles and toes remaining 
firm on the floor, sustaining the entire weight. 
When the heels are as high as possible, hold them 
there a moment ; then lower slowly till the whole 
foot is on the floor again ; then rise as before, and 
so repeat twelve times twice a day the first week, 
and then twenty-five for the following week, con- 
tinuing this. If this is not vigorous enough when 
fifty, after the first month, are tried, it will be 
found that now this work is telling directly on 
the size, shape, and effectiveness of the feet and 
calves, and on the grace and springiness of the 
step itself. If any boy or girl wants to become 
a good jumper, or to get decided aid in learning 
to dance long and easily, he or she will find this 
a great help. If they even practice it half an 
hour a day, they will be none the worse for it. 

All the work thus far recommended here can 
readily be done in two minutes. Standing erect, 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 257 

with the arms still akimbo, and the feet as before, 
now bend the knees so as to stoop six or eight 
inches, then rise to the perpendicular, stoop again, 
and continue this six times, the feet never leaving 
the floor. This strengthens the knees, while the 
front of the thighs get the heaviest part of the 
work, though the leg below the knee is doing a 
good share. (It is not unlike the exercise prac- 
tised so assiduously by Eowell on the tread-mill, 
and which brought him such magnificent legs that 
he became champion pedestrian of the world.) 
By the third week the number may be made 
twenty-five. If among the scholars there are some 
who are decidedly weak, twenty- five of these exer- 
cises is about the limit. For strong, hearty boys, 
twice as many will prove nearer the mark. After 
two or three months of twenty-five movements as 
described for every day, fifty might be tried once 
by all the pupils, to see whether it is too severe, 
and if not, then maintained daily at the maximum. 
Thus far the feet have not left their particular 
position on the floor. Now let the pupil stand 
with the right foot advanced about twelve or fif- 
teen inches, suddenly rising on the toes, give a 
slight spring, and throw the left foot to the front, 
and the right back; then spring back as before, 
and do this six times twice a day the first week, to 
twelve the second, and twice as many by the end 

17 



258 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

of the month. This calls the same muscles into 
play as the last exercise, and brings the same de- 
velopment, but is a little more severe and vigorous. 

If still harder thigh -work is wanted, starting 
again, with the feet not over four inches apart, this 
time do not raise the heels at all, but stoop down 
slowly, as low as possible, bending the knees great- 
ly, of course, the back, however, being held straight 
all the while. Then rise to an erect position, then 
go down again. Practising this three times each 
morning and afternoon at first, may be followed 
up with six a week later; and twelve by the end 
of the month. Better work than this for quickly 
giving size and strength to the thighs could hard- 
ly be devised ; while, as has been already noted, 
scarcely any muscles on the whole body are more 
needed or used for ordinary walking. 

Still standing erect, with arms akimbo, raise the 
right foot in front about as high as the left knee, 
keeping the right knee unbent. Hold the right 
foot there ten seconds; then drop it; then raise 
it again, fully six times. Then, standing, do the 
same thing with the left foot. This calls at once 
on the muscles across the abdomen, aiding the 
stomach and other vital organs there directly in 
their work. 

This time raise the foot equally high behind; 
then return it to the floor, and so continue, giving 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 259 

each foot equal work to do. The under thigh, 
hip, and loin are now in action ; and when, later 
on, they become strong, their owner will find how 
much easier it is to run than it used to be, and 
also that it has become more natural to stand 
erect. The rate of increase of these last two ex- 
ercises may be about the same as the others. 

There is not much left now of the ten minutes. 
Still, if the work has been pushed promptly for- 
ward, there may still be a little time. However, 
all three of the kinds of work suggested for the 
front thigh need not be practised at the one re- 
cess, any one sufficing at first. 

With head and neck again erect, and knees firm, 
hold the hands out at the sides and at arm's-length, 
and clasp the hands firmly together, as though try- 
ing to squeeze a rubber ball or other elastic sub- 
stance. Beginning with twenty of these move- 
ments, fifty may be accomplished by the end of 
the fortnight; and by their continuance both the 
grip and the shape of the hand will be found 
steadily improving. 

Clasp the hands together over the head. Now 
turn them over until the palms are upward, or 
turned toward the ceiling, and straighten the el- 
bows until the hands are as high over the head as 
you can reach. While holding them in this posi- 
tion, be careful that they are not allowed to drop 



260 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

at all. Let the scholar march three or four times 
around the room in this position. It will soon be 
found that no apparatus whatever is necessary to 
get quite a large amount of exercise for the cor- 
ners of the shoulders. In this way, while there 
is an unwonted stretching apart of the ribs, and 
opening up of the chest, the drawing in of the 
stomach and abdomen will be found to correct 
incipient chest weakness, half-breathing, and any 
tendency toward indigestion. 

Following up the method, now let the class 
form around the side of the room, standing three 
feet apart, and about two feet from the wall. 
Place the hands against the wall, just at a level 
with and opposite to the shoulders. Now, keep- 
ing the heels all the time on the floor, let the body 
settle gradually forward until the chest touches 
the wall, keeping the elbows pretty near to the 
sides, the knees never bending a particle, and the 
face held upturned, the eyes looking at the ceil- 
ing directly overhead. Now push sharply off from 
the wall until the elbows are again straight, and 
the body back at vertical. Then repeat this, and 
continue six times for each half of the day for the 
first week. Keep on until you reach fifteen by the 
third week, and twenty-five by the second month. 
For expanding and deepening the chest, helping to 
poise the head and neck so that they will remain 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 261 

exactly where they belong — in an erect position — 
and for giving the main part of the upper back- 
arm quite a difficult piece of work to do, this will 
prove a capital exercise. Whoever will make a 
specialty of this one form of exercise until they 
daily take two or even three hundred such pushes, 
will find that any tendency he or she may have 
to flatness or hollowness of chest will soon begin 
to decrease, and will very likely disappear alto- 
gether. 

In this last exercise most of the weight was on 
the feet, the hands and arms sustaining the rest. 
If the aisles are not over two feet and a half wide, 
let each pupil stand between two opposite desks 
and place one hand on each. Now, walking back 
about three or four feet, his hands still resting on 
the two desks, let him, keeping his body rigid and 
knees unbent, bend his elbows and lower his chest 
very gradually until it is nearly or quite level with 
the desk tops, then slowly straighten up his arms, 
and so raise his body again to the original posi- 
tion. Three such dips twice a day the first week, 
five or six the second, and by the end of the month 
ten or twelve, and that number then maintained 
steadily, will open and enlarge the chest material- 
ly before the year is out, while at the same time 
doing much to increase and strengthen the upper 
back -arm. This is harder work than pushing 



262 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC 



against the wall, because the hands and arms now 
have to sustain a much greater portion of the 
weight of the body, but it is correspondingly bet- 
ter for the chest. 

Thus far exercises have been described calling 
for no apparatus at all, nor anything save a floor 
to stand on, a wall to push against, two ordinary 
school desks, and a fair degree of resolution. For 
children under ten, wooden dumb-bells, weighing 
one pound each, ought to be had of any wood- 
turner, and ought not to cost over five cents apiece. 
There might be one pair of dumb-bells given to 
each child, or, if the class is large, then a single 
dumb-bell for each, and they could be distributed 
among two classes for dumb-bell exercises. 

Standing in the aisles, and about five feet apart, 
every child taking a dumb-bell in each hand, keep- 
ing the knees unbent and the head and neck erect, 
let them raise or " curl " the bells slowly until they 
are up to the shoulders, the finger-nails being held 
upward. Then lower, then raise again, and so on 
ten or twelve times each half-day for the first fort- 
night, and double that many thereafter. This tells 
principally on the biceps or front of the upper 
arm, on the front of the shoulder, and on the pec- 
toral muscles, or those of the upper front chest. 
When, later on, any pupil endeavors to pull him- 
self up to his chin, he will find what a large share 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 263 

of the work these muscles have to do. Instead 
of the one-pound dumb-bells then, his whole body 
will be the weight to be lifted. 

Again, let the dumb-bells hang at the sides. 
Raise them slowly, high up, behind the back, 
keeping the elbows straight and the arms paral- 
lel. After holding them there five seconds lower 
them ; do it again, and keep on, ten times twice 
a day at first, making it twenty in a fortnight, and 
thirty thereafter. This work will enlarge that 
part of the back of the upper arm next to the 
body, and will also tell directly on the whole back 
of the shoulder, and on the large muscles on the 
back just below where the arm joins it. 

This time, holding the knuckles upward and the 
elbows straight, lift the dumb-bells till level with 
the shoulders, the arms being extended sideways 
as if on a cross. After holding them up five sec- 
onds, lower them ; then raise them but five or six 
times at the first lesson, increasing to twenty by 
the end of the month, and then maintaining that 
number. The corners of the shoulders are get- 
ting the work now, and by-and-by not only shape- 
ly shoulders will come from it, but a noticeable in- 
crease of the breadth across the shoulders. This 
work may be varied by raising the arms parallel 
in front until level with the shoulders, then lower- 
ing, and so continuing. 



264 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



Next raise the two bells to the shoulders ; then, 
facing the ceiling, push both up together until they 
are as high over the head as possible ; then lower, 
push up again, and continue six times twice a 
day for the first week ; make the twelve the third 
week and the twenty of the fifth, and then keep 
at that. The outer or more noticeable parts of 
the upper back, the arms, are busiest now ; and 
this exercise directly tends to enlarge and strength- 
en them, and to add materially to the appearance 
of the arms. 

But one exercise more need be mentioned here. 
Stand erect; now draw the head and neck back 
of the vertical all of eight inches, until you face 
the ceiling. Starting with the dumb-bells high 
up over the head, keeping the elbows straight, low- 
er the dumb-bells slowly, until now you are hold- 
ing them at arm's-length, with your arms spread, 
as on a cross. Then lift them up again, lower, and 
continue. If this does not spread the chest open, it 
will be hard to find anything which will. Do this 
consecutively twenty times every day for a month. 
That number will take scarcely a minute to ac- 
complish, but the little one-pound bells will feel 
wondrously heavy before the minute is over. 

Here, then, have been shown quite a variety of 
exercises, not only safe and simple but inexpen- 
sive, which can readily be adopted in any school. 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 265 

If they are followed up as faithfully and steadily 
as are the other lessons, they cannot fail to bring 
decided and very welcome improvement in the 
shape and capacity of all the muscles, and hence 
of the whole body, while it will go far toward 
giving to all the scholars an erect and healthy car- 
riage. These results alone would delight many a 
parent's heart. The making this branch of in- 
struction as compulsory as any other would soon 
accustom the pupil to look for it as matter of 
course. If it were conducted with spirit, it would 
always be sure to prove interesting, and very likely 
to send the children back to their studies much 
fresher and brighter for the temporary mental rest. 
Besides these exercises, the teacher, insisting 
on the value of an erect position in school hours, 
whether the pupil be standing or sitting, and by 
inculcating the value of this, would soon find that 
these efforts were being rewarded by making many 
a crooked girl or boy straight, and so lessening 
their chance of having either delicate throats or 
weak lungs. Care should be taken that the school 
chairs have broad and comfortable seats, and that 
the pupil never sits on a half of the seat or on the 
edge of it, but far back, and on the whole of it. 
This apparently small matter will assist marvel- 
lously in forming the habit of an erect position 
while sitting. Some twenty years ago a Mrs. Car- 



266 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

man, of Boston, devised a chair-back which should 
just fit the hollow of the back when the back was 
held erect, as it should be. This simple contriv- 
ance greatly encouraged a good position in sit- 
ting, and could well be made a part of the stand- 
ard chair in our schools. A pad of the right shape, 
hung on the back of the chair, would effect the 
same object. 

The teacher's opportunity to work marked and 
permanent physical benefit to every pupil under 
her charge, by daily and steadily following up 
most or either of the above exercises, or of some 
substantially equivalent, can scarcely be over-esti- 
mated. The exercises strengthen the postures, 
whether sitting or standing. When a teacher in- 
sists on having her children erect for six hours 
out of the twenty-four, and makes plain to each 
one the value of being straight, and the self-re- 
spect it tends directly to encourage, there need be 
no great fear that the remaining waking hours 
will make any child crooked. It is in school gen- 
erally that the mischief of warping and crook- 
ing is done ; and hence there, of all places, would 
be the most appropriate place for the undoing 
of it. 

Dumb-bells of but a pound each have been men- 
tioned here so far. Such would be fitting for pu- 
pils under ten years of age. For all older pupils 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 267 

the same work with two -pound bells will prove 
generally vigorous enough; and whoever wishes 
to judge what these light weights can do in a short 
time should examine the results of Dr. Sargent's 
exercises with them and other light apparatus at 
Bowdoin College (see Appendix II.). Those who 
are already decidedly strong can of course try 
larger bells ; but it is astonishing how soon those 
of only two pounds seem to grow heavy, even to 
those who laugh at them at first. 

Of course, all the work before described cannot 
be gone through with in ten minutes in mid-morn- 
ing, or even in the twenty of the morning and af- 
ternoon sessions combined ; but much of it can : 
and an advantage of naming too much is that it 
enables the teacher to vary the work from day to 
day, and so, while effecting the same results, pre- 
vents anything like monotony. 

As the months go by, and it is found that the 
weaker ones have noticeably improved, and all are 
now capable of creditable performances at these 
various exercises, they may be carried safely on 
to the gymnasium — that is, if the school is fortu- 
nate enough to possess one. It is but a partially 
equipped school which is not provided with a good- 
sized, well -ventilated room, say of forty or fifty 
feet square (and one fifty by a hundred would do 
far better), fitted up with the simpler gymnastic 



268 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

appliances. Now the teacher, if up to his work, 
can render even more valuable assistance than be- 
fore, by standing by the pupil, as he or she at- 
tempts the simplest steps on the parallel bars, or 
the rings, or the high bars, the pulley-weights, or 
the horizontal bar ; constant explanations are to be 
given how to advance, and setting the example, 
detecting defects and correcting them on the spot, 
and all the while being ready to catch the pupil 
and prevent him or her from falling. An in- 
structor soon finds that the pupils progress as rap- 
idly as they did in the lighter preparatory work, 
while now they are entering on a field which, if 
faithfully cultivated, though for only the same 
brief intervals daily, will later on insure a class of 
strong, healthy, shapely, and symmetrical boys or 
girls, strong of arm and fleet of foot, familiar with 
what they can do, and knowing what is not to be 
attempted. Much, indeed the greater part, of the 
good to be derived from the gymnasium would 
have come from steadily adhering to the exercises 
above pointed out, so that even with no gymna- 
sium excellent progress can be had ; but results 
come quicker in the gymnasium, and the place in- 
vites greater freedom of action. In ten minutes 
in the morning, for instance, thirty or forty boys 
or girls could, following one another promptly, 
" walk " (on their hands) through the parallel bars 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 269 

with the elbows unbent, the head of the line cross- 
ing at once to the high bars, and " walk " or ad- 
vance through them, first holding the weight on 
one hand and then on the other, then turning to 
the horizontal bar and vaulting over it. If the 
rear of the line is not yet through the forward 
" walk " on the parallels, those at the head could 
take a swing on the rings. Next, they could 
" walk " backward through the parallels, then 
through the high bars ; then vault again, swing 
again, and then try the parallels anew — this time 
"jumping" forward, or advancing both hands at 
once, the arms of course being held rigidly straight. 
Then turning to the high bars, they could jump 
or advance through them, springing forward with 
both hands at once, vault again, the bar having 
meanwhile been raised, and either try the rings 
again or rest a moment, and then jump backward 
through the high bars. 

A little foot- work, for a minute or two remain- 
ing, would make a good conclusion. With the 
hands closed and elbows bent, the body and arms 
held almost rigid, the neck well back, and the head 
up, let the column now start off around the room 
on an easy trot, each stepping as noiselessly as pos- 
sible, and no heel touching the floor. A minute 
of this at a lively pace will be abundant at first ; 
and as the legs gradually get strong, and the breath- 



270 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

ing improves, the run can be either made faster or 
longer, or both. 

As the pupils began to grow steadier, with their 
hands on the bars they could next swing their 
feet back and forth, and jump with their hands 
as they swing forward ; then, later, could jump 
forward as the feet are swung backward, and 
backward as the feet are swung forward. The 
vaulting-bar for the boys meanwhile may stead- 
ily rise, peg after peg ; and, when proficiency is 
reached with two hands, one -hand vaulting may 
be tried, and the bar gradually raised as before, 
the teacher ahvays standing near the vaulter. 
The swinging on the rings, instead of being any 
longer simple straight -arm work, with the body 
hanging nearly down, can now be done with the 
elbows bent much of the time, the knees being 
curled up toward the chin as the swinger goes 
backward. 

After two months of straight-arm work on the 
parallel bars, even the girls may now try the same 
exercises they did w r ith their arms when straight, 
save that now they should always keep them bent 
at the elbows. This will come hard even yet, and 
must be tried with care. These are the well-known 
" dips," followed up little by little, and month af- 
ter month. By-and-by these exercises will come 
as easy as w T as the straight-arm work. 



WHAT EXEECISE TO TAKE DAILY. 271 

To all, or nearly all, the high bar work should 
now be done with bent elbows, while the vaulting 
should, say by the end of the year, be nearly at 
shoulder height for each pupil, and even, for many 
of them, that high with one hand. The running 
should have improved correspondingly, so that five 
minutes of it at a respectable pace, say at the rate 
of a mile in seven minutes, would not trouble the 
girls, and even ten minutes of it not distress the 
boys. 

Now, what have these few exercises done for 
the muscles and their owners ? 

Well, the straight -arm work on the parallels, 
by throwing the whole weight on the hands, told 
directly on the upper back- arm, while the dips 
brought the same region into most vigorous ac- 
tion, and at the same time opened and strength- 
ened the front of the chest very markedly, tending 
to set the shoulders back, and enlarging the chest, 
and hence the lung-room as well. The high -bar 
work told equally upon the biceps muscles, or those 
of the front of the upper arm, and likewise on the 
front of the shoulders. The vaulting made the 
vaulter springy, and strengthened his thighs and 
calves materially, and his abdominal muscles some- 
what, while the more advanced work on the rings 
brought both the biceps and abdominal muscles 
into most energetic play. The running was excel- 



272 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

lent for the entire legs and the abdominals, while 
as a lung-expander it is difficult to equal. 

Those proficient at these few exercises, if they 
have heeded the endeavors made to secure at all 
times an erect and easy carriage of the body, need 
but one more thing. With regular and sensible 
habits of eating, sleeping, dressing, and bathing, 
they would be almost certain to be at once well 
and strong. The thing wanted is daily constitu- 
tional out-of-doors exercise ; whether taken afoot, 
on horseback, or at the oar, it matters little, so long 
as it is vigorously taken and faithfully persisted in, 
in all weathers. This guarantees that pure and 
bracing air shall be had, breaks up the thread of 
the day's thoughts, rests the mind, and quickly re- 
fits it for new work. This alone gives the full 
deep breathing, and the healthy tire of the mus- 
cles. It furnishes constantly varying scene, with 
needed eye and ear gymnastics— in short, every- 
thing which is the reverse of that quiet, sedentary, 
plodding life over books or papers, read too often 
in poorly lighted offices. 

Home exercise, then, with the out-of-door life, 
will combine to tone us up, to invigorate our per- 
sons, and to keep off either mental or physical ex- 
haustion and disorder. 

The above work, followed up assiduously, ought 
to bring in its train health, symmetry, a good car- 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 273 

riage, buoyant spirits, and a fair share of nerve 
and agility. But many a young man is not con- 
tent with merely these ; he wants to be very 
strong. He is already at or near his majority. 
He is quite strong, perhaps, in some ways, but in 
others is plainly deficient. What ought he to do ? 

Daily Exercise for Young Men. 

On rising, let him stand erect, brace his chest 
firmly out, and, breathing deeply, curl dumb-bells 
(each of about one-fifteenth of his own weight) 
fifty times without stopping. This is biceps work 
enough for the early morning. Then, placing the 
bells on the floor at his feet, and bending his knees 
a little, and his arms none at all, rise to an upright 
position with them fifty times. The loins and 
back have had their turn now. After another 
minute's rest, standing erect, let him lift the bells 
fifty times as far up and out behind him as he 
can, keeping elbows straight, and taking care, when 
the bells reach the highest point behind, to hold 
them still there a moment. Now the under side 
of his arms, and about the whole of the upper 
back, have had their work. Next, starting with 
the bells at the shoulders, push them up high over 
the head, and lower fifty times continuously. Now 
the outer part of the upper arms, the corners of the 
shoulders, and the waist have all had active duty. 

18 



274 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

Finally, after another minute's rest, start with 
the bells high over the head, and lower slowly un- 
til the arms are in about the position they w T ould 
be on a cross, the elbows being always kept un- 
bent. Raise the bells to height again, then lower, 
and so continue until you have done ten, care be- 
ing taken to hold the head six or more inches back 
of the perpendicular, and to steadily face the ceil- 
ing directly overhead, while the chest is swelled 
out to its uttermost. Best half a minute after 
doing ten, then do ten more, and so on till you 
have accomplished fifty. This last exercise is one 
of the best -known chest -expanders. Now that 
these five sorts of work are over, few muscles 
above the waist have not had vigorous and ample 
work, the lungs themselves have had a splendid 
stretch, and you have not spent over fifteen min- 
utes on the whole operation. If you want to add 
a little hand and fore-arm work, catch a broom- 
stick or stout cane at or near the middle, and, 
holding it at arm's-length, twist it rapidly from 
side to side a hundred times with one hand, and 
then with the other. 

In the late afternoon a five-mile w r alk on the 
road, at a four-mile pace, with the step inclined to 
be short, the knees bent but little, and the foot push- 
ing harder than usual as it leaves the ground — this 
will be found to bring the legs and loins no incon- 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 275 

siderable exercise ; all, in fact, that they will prob- 
ably need. If, shortly before bedtime each even- 
ing, the youth, after he has been working as above, 
say for a month, will, in light clothes and any old 
and easy shoes, run a mile in about seven minutes 
and a half, and, a little later, under the seven min- 
utes, or, three nights a week, make the distance 
two miles each night, there will soon be a life and 
vigor in his legs which used to be unknown ; and 
if six months of this work brings a whole inch 
more on thigh and calf, it is only what might have 
been expected. 

For still more rapid and decided advance, an 
hour at the gymnasium during the latter part of 
the morning, half of it at the rowing-weights, so 
thickening and stoutening the back, and the other 
half at " dipping" and other half-arm work on the 
parallel bars — so spreading and enlarging the chest 
and stoutening the back-arms — these will increase 
the development rapidly, and will sharpen the ap- 
petite at a corresponding rate. But it must be 
real work, and no dawdling or time lost. 

Few T young men in any active employment, how- 
ever, can spare this morning hour. Still, without 
it, if they will follow up the bef ore-breakfast work, 
the walking in the fashion named, and the run- 
ning, they will soon find time enough for this 
much, and most satisfactory results in the way of 



276 HOW TO GET STKONG, ETC 



improved health and increased strength as well. 
Indeed, it will for most young men prove about 
the right amount to keep them toned up and 
ready for their day's work. If they desire great 
development in any special line, let them select 
some of the exercises described in the previous 
chapter, as aimed to effect such development, and 
practice them as assiduously, if need be, as Rowell 
did his tread-mill work for his legs. 

Daily Exercise for Women. 

And what should the girls and women do each 
day ? With two-pound wooden dumb-bells at first, 
let them, before breakfast, go through twenty-five 
movements of each of the five sorts just described 
for young men. After six weeks or two months 
they can increase the number to fifty, and, if this 
does not bring the desired increase in size, and 
strength of arm and chest and back, then they can 
try dumb-bells weighing four or five pounds each. 

Out-of-doors, either in the latter part of the 
morning or afternoon, if they will, in broad, easy 
shoes, walk for one hour, not at any listless two- 
mile pace, but at first as fast as they comfortably 
can, and then gradually increasing until in a fort- 
night or more they can make sure of three miles 
and a half at least, if not of four miles within the 
hour, and will observe the way of stepping just 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 277 

suggested to the men, they will get about walking 
enough. And if once in awhile, every Saturday, 
for instance, they make the walk all of five or six 
miles, getting, if city ladies, quite out into the sub- 
urbs and back, they will be surprised and gratified 
at the greater ease with which they can walk now 
than formerly, and at their freshness at the end. 
Recent reports from India say that English ladies 
there often spend two or three hours daily in the 
saddle. Every American lady who can manage 
to ride that much, or half of it, and at a strong, 
brisk pace, will soon have a health and vigor al- 
most unknown among our women and girls to-day. 

If walking and horseback parties, instead of be- 
ing, as now, well-nigh unheard of among our girls, 
were every-day affairs, and there was not a point 
of interest within ten miles which every girl, and 
woman too, did not know well, it would prove a 
benefit both to them and to the next generation 
which would be almost incalculable. 

Girls should also learn to run. Few of them 
are either easy or graceful runners; but it is an 
accomplishment quickly learned; and begun at a 
short distance and slow jog, and continued until 
the girl thinks nothing of running a mile in seven 
minutes, and that without once touching a heel to 
the ground, it will do more than almost any other 
known exercise to make her graceful and easy on 



278 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 



her feet, and also to enlarge and strengthen her 
lungs. A roomy school-yard, a bit of lawn, or a 
gymnasium-track, either of these is all the place 
needed in which to learn this now almost obsolete 
accomplishment. The gymnasium is perhaps the 
best place, as there they can wear costumes which 
do not impede freedom of movement. 

If besides these things the girl or woman will 
determine that, as much as possible of the time 
each day in which she is sitting down, she will 
sit with head and neck up, trunk erect, and with 
shoulders low, and that whenever she stands or 
walks she will at all times be upright, she will 
shortly find that she is getting to be far straighter 
than she was, and, if she has a larger and finer 
chest than formerly, it will be nothing strange, for 
she has simply been using one of the means to get 
it. If a still greater variety of daily work is de- 
sired, she can select it from Chapter XII. ; the ex- 
ercises on the pulley-weights and on the apparatus 
sketched in Fig. 8 being especially desirable. 

Daily Exercise for Business Men. 

And what daily work shall the business man 
take? His aim is not to lay on muscle, not to 
become equal to this or that athletic feat, but sim- 
ply to so exercise as to keep his entire physical 
and mental machinery in good working order, and 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 279 

himself equal to all demands likely to be made on 
him. 

First he, like the young man or the woman, 
should make sure of the ten or fifteen minutes' work 
before breakfast. Not through the long day again 
will he be likely to have another good opportunity 
for physical exercise, at least until evening, and 
then he will plead that he is too tired. But in the 
early morning, fresh and rested, and with a few 
minutes at his disposal, he can, as Bryant did, with- 
out serious or violent effort, work himself great 
benefit, the good effect of which will stay by him 
all the day. If he has in his room the few bits of 
apparatus suggested in the chapter on "Home 
Gymnasiums," he will be better off than Bryant 
was, in that he can have a far wider range of ex- 
ercise, and that all ready at hand. 

Let him first devote two or three minutes to the 
striking-bag. Facing it squarely, with head back 
and chest well out, let him strike it a succession 
of vigorous blows, with left and right fists alternat- 
ing, until he has done a hundred in all. If he 
has hit hard and with spirit, he is puffing freely 
now, his lungs are fully expanded, his legs have 
had a deal of springing about to do, and his arms 
and chest have been busiest of all. This bag- 
work is really superb exercise, and if once or 
twice, later in the day, say at one's place of busi- 



280 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

ness, or at home again in the evening, he would 
take some more of it, he would find fret, discom- 
fort, and indigestion flying to the winds, and in 
their place buoyancy and exhilaration of spirits to 
which too many men have long been strangers. 

Next grasp the handles in Fig. 8 and bear down- 
ward, as described on page 249. Repeat this work 
for about two minutes, standing all the time thor- 
oughly erect. "Whether the sparring left any part 
of your chest unfilled or not, every air-cell is ex- 
panded now, while you cannot fail to be pleased 
with the thorough way in which this simple con- 
trivance does its work. Care should of course be 
taken that the air breathed daring these exercises 
is pure and fresh. 

Now use the dumb-bells two or three minutes. 
Let them weigh not over one twenty-fifth of your 
own weight. First, with head and neck a trifle 
back of vertical, and the chest held out as full 
as possible, curl the bells, or lift them from down 
at arm's-length until you have drawn them close 
up to the shoulders, the finger-nails being turned 
upward. Lower again and repeat until you have 
done twenty-five, the chest being always out. The 
biceps muscles, or those of the front upper arm, 
and of the front of the shoulders and chest, have 
been busy now. 

Next, starting with the bells at your shoulders, 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 281 

push both at once steadily up over your head as 
high as you can reach, and continue till twenty- 
five are accomplished. The back-arms, corners of 
the shoulders, and the waist have now had their 
turn. 

Facing the pulley-weights (Fig. 4), and stand- 
ing about two feet from them, catch a handle in 
each hand. Keeping the elbows stiff, draw first 
one hand and then the other in a horizontal line 
until your hand is about eighteen inches behind 
you, the body and legs being at all times held rig- 
idly erect, and the chest well out. Continue this 
until you have done fifty strokes with each hand. 
This is excellent for the back of the shoulders — 
indeed for nearly the entire back above the waist. 

Again, with back to the pulley- weights, hold the 
handles high over the head, and leaning forward 
about a foot, keeping the elbows unbent, bear the 
handles directly dowmvard in front of you, and so 
do twenty-five. 

Besides these few things, or most of them, put 
the bar (Fig. 3) in the upper place, and, catching 
it with both hands, just swing back and forth, at 
first for half a minute, afterward longer, always 
holding the head well back. This is capital at 
stretching the ribs apart and expanding the chest. 
If the above exercises seem too hard at first, begin 
with half as much, or even less, and work gradu- 



282 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

ally up until the number named can be easily 
done. 

If, once in mid-morning and again in mid-after- 
noon, the man, right in his store or office, will 
turn for two or three minutes to his dumb-bells, 
and repeat what he did with his home pair in the 
morning, he will find the rest and change most re- 
freshing. But in any case, whether he does so or 
not, every man in this country whose life is in- 
door ought to so divide his time that, come what 
may , he will make sure of his hour out-of-doors 
in the late afternoon, when the day's work is 
nearly or quite done. If he must get up earlier, 
or get to his work earlier, or work faster while he 
does work, no matter. The prize is well worth 
any such sacrifice, and even five times it. Emer- 
son well says, " The first wealth is health," and 
no pains should be spared to secure it. Lose it 
awhile and see. Exercise vigorously that hour 
afoot, or horseback, or on the water, making sure 
that during it you utterly ignore your business and 
usual thoughts. Walk less at first, but soon do 
your four miles in the hour, and then stick to that, 
of course having shoes in which it is easy to walk, 
and before long the good appetite of boyhood will 
return, food taste as it often has not done for years, 
sound sleep will be surer, and new life and zest 
will be infused into all that you do. Let every 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 283 

man in this country who lives by brain-work get 
this daily "constitutional" at all hazards, and it will 
do more to secure to him future years of health 
and usefulness than almost anything else he can do. 
It will be observed that there is nothing severe 
or violent in any of these exercises suggested for 
men — nothing that old or young may not take with 
like advantage. The whole idea is to point out a 
plain and simple plan of exercise, which, followed 
up faithfully, will make sound health almost cer- 
tain, and which is easily within the reach of all. 

Daily Exercise for Consumptives. 

And what should these people do? If there is 
one good lung left, or a goodly portion of two, 
there is much which they can do. Before break- 
fast they need to be more careful than others be- 
cause of their poorer circulation. Still, in a warm 
and comfortable room they can work to advantage 
even then. In most instances consumptives have 
not large enough chests. Stripped to the waist, 
there is found to be a flatness of the upper chest, 
a lack of depth straight through from breastbone 
to spine ; and the girth about the chest itself, and 
especially at the lower part of it, is often two or 
more inches less than it is in a well-built person 
of the same height. Now, to weed out these de- 
fects, to swell up and enlarge the chest, and bring 



284 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC 



it proper breadth, and depth, and fulness, this will 
go far toward insuring healthy and vigorous lungs. 
And how is this done ? 

Standing under the handles in an appliance like 
that represented in Fig. 8, holding the body rigid- 
ly erect, the chest out, the knees and elbows un- 
bent, bear the two handles downward on either 
side of you until the hands are as if extended on a 
cross, using only very light weights at first. Lower 
the weights again, then bear down again, and so 
do ten. Just as you bear down each time, inflate 
the lungs to their utmost, and hold the air in them 
until you have lowered the weights again. Rest 
about a minute, then do ten more, and a little later 
ten more. This w T ill be enough before breakfast 
work the first week. At breakfast, and whenever 
sitting down throughout the day, determine to do 
two things — to sit far back on your chair, and to 
sit at all times upright. No matter how many 
times you forget or fail, even if a thousand, keep 
trying until the erect posture becomes habitual. 
This point once reached, you have accomplished a 
great thing — one which may aid not a little to 

save vour life. 

t/ 

Next, about an hour after breakfast, start out for 
an easy walk. Going quietly at first, the head 
held, if anything, back of the vertical, and the step 
short and springy; quicken later into a lively pace, 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 285 

and, holding that as long as you comfortably can, 
return to your room. If your skin is moist, do not 
hesitate a minute, but strip at once, and with coarse 
towels rub your skin till it is thoroughly red all 
over, and then put on dry under-clothing. If you 
then feel like taking a nap, take it. When well 
rested, do thirty more strokes at the pulley-weights. 
In the afternoon try more walking, or some horse- 
back work if you can get a steed with any dash in 
him. After you are through, then more weight 
work. Finally, just before retiring, take another 
turn at the weights. 

After the first week run the weight work up to 
fifty at a time, and increase the out-door distance 
covered both morning and afternoon, being sure 
to go in all weathers, and to eat and sleep all you 
comfortably can. Vary the in-door work also some- 
what. In addition to the exercise on Fig. 8, prac- 
tice now an equal number of strokes daily on the 
appliance described as Fig. 9, and in the fashion 
described on page 249. After the first fortnight 
try hanging by the two hands on the horizontal 
bar and swinging lightly back and forth. Before 
breakfast, before dinner, before supper, and just 
before retiring, take a turn at this swinging. Of 
it, and the work on the two sorts of pulley-weights, 
a weak -lunged person can scarcely do enough. 
These open the ribs apart, broaden and deepen the 



286 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

chest, and inflate the lungs — the very things the 
consumptive needs. The out-door work secures 
him or her ample good air, vigorous exercise, and 
frequent change of scene. On the value of this 
good air, or rather of the danger of bad air, hear 
Langenbeck, the great German anatomist : " I am 
sure now of what I suspected long ago, viz., that 
pulmonary diseases have very little to do with in- 
temperance, * * * and much less with cold weath- 
er, but are nearly exclusively (if we except tuber- 
culous tendencies inherited from both parents, I 
say quite exclusively) produced by the breathing 
of foul air." This out-door work should also be 
steadily increased until the half -hour's listless 
walk at first becomes six or eight miles before 
dinner, and as much more before supper. From 
breakfast to supper one can hardly be exercising 
out-of-doors too much ; and steadily calling on the 
heart and lungs in these very favorable ways, in- 
creased vigor and power are only what might have 
reasonably been looked for. 

As the months roll on, and this steady work, 
directed right to the weak spots, has strengthened 
and toughened you, now put larger weights on the 
Fig. 8 appliance, and also increase the number 
of strokes until you do a thousand or even two 
thousand daily — head and body always being held 
erect, and full breathing a constant accornpani- 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 287 

ment. This making a specialty of these chest- 
expanding exercises, none of which are severe or 
violent, but which are still vigorous enough, and 
the abundance of healthy and active out-door life, 
are sure to bring good fruits in this battle where 
the stake is no less than one's own life. They are 
rationaFand vigorous means, aimed directly at the 
weak part, and, with good air, good food, cheerful 
friends, and ample sleep, will often work marvels, 
where the filling the stomach with a whole apoth- 
ecary shop of nauseous oils and other medicines 
has wholly failed to bring the relief sought. These 
exercises taken by a man already healthy at once 
tone him up and invigorate him, until he begins to 
have something of the feeling of the sturdy pio- 
neer, as described by Dr. Mitchell.* And if the 
delicate person tries the same means, using them 
judiciously and carefully, it is but natural that he 
should find similar results. 

Some years ago Dr. G , of Boston, showed us 

a photograph of himself taken several years pre- 
viously. The shoulders were warped forward, the 
chest looked flat, almost hollow, and the face and 
general appearance suggested a delicate man. He 
said he inclined to be consumptive. Well, by 
practising breathing, not on an ordinary "blowing- 

* See page 77. 



288 HOW TO GET STRONG, ETC. 

machine," where you empty your lungs of about 
all that is in them, but on an inspirometer, from 
which instead you inhale every inch of air you 
can, and by practising vigorous working of his 
diaphragm, he had so expanded his lungs that 
he could inhale three hundred and eighty cubic 
inches of air at one breath ! Certainly the depth 
of his chest at the later period was something 
astounding, it being, as nearly as we could judge 
without calipers, all of fourteen inches through, di- 
rectly from breastbone to spine, while it was a 
strikingly broad chest as well. 

But an even more astonishing feature was the 
tremendous power of his voice. He said that at 
the end of half an hour's public singing with the 
opera singers (for he was skilled at that), while 
they would be hot and perspiring he was only just 
warming up and getting ready for his work. One 
thing all who ever heard him sing would quickly 
concede, namely, that seldom had they anywhere 
heard so immense a voice as his. He said that he 
had also run two blocks in one breath. He look- 
ed about the farthest remove from a consumptive 
— a short, stout, fat man, rather. 

Now the in-door chest work above recommended, 
and the steady and vigorous daily out-door work, 
all aiming to deepen and strengthen the lungs, are 
well-nigh sure to bring decidedly favorable re- 



WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY. 289 

suits; while the doctor's habit of frequent, deep, 
and slow inhaling, cannot fail to work great good, 
and can hardly be practised enough. 

After he of weak lungs has once built them up 
again and regained the former vigor, he should 
not only be sure of his daily in-door exercise and 
of his constitutional, but of a longer outing daily 
than a stronger man would need. President Day, 
of Yale, said to have been a consumptive at sev- 
enteen, by good care of his body lived to be nine- 
ty-five, and it is far from uncommon for delicate 
persons, who take good care of the small stock of 
vigor they have, to outlive sturdier ones who are 
more prodigal and careless. 

19 



APPENDIX I. 

Showing the average state of the development of 200 men upon enter- 
ing the Bowdoin College Gymnasium, from the classes of "73, "74, 

'75, "76, and "ft. 

Age 18.3 years. 

Height 5 ft. 8 in GT.9T4 in. 

Weight 135 lbs 134.9S1 lbs. 

Chest (inflated) 35 in 35.06T in. 

Chest (contracted) 32* in 32.29 in. 

Forearm 10 in 10.03 in. 

Upper arm (flexed) 11 in 10.960 in. 

Shoulders (width) 15* in 15.602 in. 

Hips 31* in 31.475 in. 

Thigh 19* in 19.612 in. 

Calf 12* in 12.729 in. 



APPENDIX II. 

Shoioing the average state of the growth and development of the same 
number of men (200) after having practised in the Bowdoin Gym- 
nasium half an hour a day four times a week, for a period of six 
montlis, under Dr. Sargent. 

Height 5 ft. S* in 6S.254 in. 

Weight 137 lbs 137.123 lbs. 

Chest (inflated) 36f in 36.829 in. 

Chest (contracted) 33 in 33.206 in. 

Forearm lOf in , 10.760 in. 

Upper arm (flexed) ... 12 in 11.903 in. 

Shoulders (width) 16* in 16.260 in. 

Hips 33f in 33.875 in. 

Thigh 21 in 20.964 in. 

Calf 13* in 13.232 in. 

In this case the apparatus used was light dumb-bells, 2* lbs. ; Indian 
clubs, 3* lbs. • pulley-weights, from 10 to 15 lbs, 



292 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX III. 

Showing average increase of 200 students at Bowdoin College, in va- 
rious measurements, after loorking but half an hour a day four 
times a week, for six montlis, under Dr. Sargent. 

Average increase in height * in. 

Average increase in weight 2 lbs. 

Average increase of chest (contracted) £ in. 

Average increase of chest (inflated) If in. 

Average increase of girth of forearm £ in. 

Average increase of girth of upper arm 1 in. 

Average increase of width of shoulders f in. 

Average increase of girth of hips 2* in. 

Average increase of girth of thigh 1* in. 

Average increase of girth of calf £ in. 



APPENDIX IV. 

Showing the effect of four hours'' exercise a week for one year upon 
a youth of 19, at Bowdoin College, under Dr. Sargenfs direction. 
This was two hours' 1 work more each week than was required of the 
regular classes. 



S . 


6 

< 

Yrs. 
19 
20 


■4-3 






4J^ 
GO +J 


o S 


^ e* 

Gib 


i 


Of* 

B 


En 




Date. 

Nov., '73 

Nov., '74 


Ft. In. 
5 8 
5 9 


Lbs. 
145 
160 


In. 
36£ 
40 


In. 

33£ 
34i 


In. 

10* 
11 


In. 

12* 
13* 


In. 
15f 

17 


In. 
35 
3(1* 

1* 


In. 
19* 

22 

2i 


Tn. 

IS* 

15 

1* 


Increase... 




1 


15 


8* 


I 


t 


1* 



APPENDIX. 



293 



APPENDIX V. 

Taken from Maclaren's " Physical Education! 1 ' 1 Showing effect of 
four montlis and twelve days' exercise, under his system, on fifteen 
youtlis ranging from 16 to 19 years of age. 

Return of Coukse of Gymnastic Training at the Royal Military 
Academy, Woolwich, from Feb. 10th, 1863, to June 22d, 1863. 



No. 


MEASUREMENTS, Etc. 


INCREASE. 


o 
< 


I 


-1-3 


03 

O 




° c5 

as 

ta- 


"53 
M 


2 

Lbs. 


-i-2 

CO 

Q 
In. 


o g 

In. 


5? e 
In. 




Yrs. 


Ft. In. 


St. Lbs. 


In. 


-In. 


in, 


In. 


1 


18 


5 li 


7 8 


291 


n 


8| 
















5 21 


7 S 


30 


n 


91 


1 


" 


1 


ct 


1 


2 


19 


5 Si 


9 51 


28 


ii 


101 
















5 Sf 


9 11 


31 i 


ii 


Hf 


4 


51 


31 


<( 


11 


3 


IT 


5 5f 


9 1 


26* 




81 
















5 6fr 


9 1 


291 


10f 


10 


t 


(< 


3 


C( 


11 


4 


18 


5 8i 


10 


33 


10f 


101 
















5 8* 


10 3 


35 


lOf 


111 


£ 


3 


2 


(C 


H 


5 


18 


6 0* 


10 13 


32 


101 


9i 
















6 li 


11 2 


34 


101 


101 


£ 


3 


2 


u 


if 


6 


17 


5 31 


8 1 


31 


101 


91 
















5 41 


8 7 


33 


101 


11 


l 


6 


2 


" 


11 


7 


18 


5 5J- 


7 13 


26 


91 


71 
















5 5f 


8 2 


29 


91 


91 


1 


3 


3 


1 

4 


if 


8 


16 


5 6f 


8 3 


m 


9 


~81 
















5 Ti 


8 4 


31 


91 


91 


1 


1 


21 


i 


1 


9 


17 


5 8* 


11 3 


31 


HI 


101 
















5 9i 


11 3 


33 


HI 


HI 


i 


u 


2 


" 


1 


10 


18 


5 llf 


11 8 


30 


101 


101 
















5 llf 


11 S 


33 


lOf 


11 


(C 


t( 


3 


i 


1 


11 


19 


5 7f 


10 2 


33 


101 


101 
















5 8f 


10 2 


34| 


101 


101 


1 


(C 


H 


<( 


f 


12 


18 


5 101 


10 11 


32 


101 


10 
















5 11| 


10 11 


331 


101 


11 


If 


C( 


H 


(C 


1 


13 


19 


5 71 


11 13 


33 


111 


12 
















5 94 


11 13 


351 


111 


121 


If 


(( 


21 


(C 


1 


14 


17 


5 Of 


9 13 


29 


10f 


81 
















5 7f 


10 3 


32 


10| 


91 


i 


4 


3 


(( 


n 


15 


19 


5 10* 


10 1 


271 


lOf 


9f 
















5 111 


10 9 


32f 


10| 


101 


H 


8 


51 


K 


H 



294 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX VI. 

Taken from Maclareii's "Physical Education.' 1 '' Showing effect of 
seven months and nineteen days' exercise, under his system, on men 
ranging from 19 to 28 years of age. 

Table of Measurements of First Detachment of Non-commissioned Offi- 
cers SELECTED TO BE QUALIFIED AS MILITARY GYMNASTIC INSTRUCTORS. 









MEASUREMENTS, Etc. 


INCREASE. 




4J 


4-3 








4-3 


^j 


. 










6 
be 


.5P 


bfl 


02 


Is 






To 


4-2 


u 




Date. 


No. 


< 
Yrs. 


W 

Ft. In. 


1 

St. Lbs. 


o 

In. 


In. 


In. 


'53 

a 

In. 


"<5 

Lbs. 


xi 

O 

In. 


In. 


In, 




Sept. 11 . . 


1 


19 


5 8* 


9 2 


33 


9* 


10 












April 30. . 






5 8| 


10 1 


37* 


10* 


llf 


s 

8 


13 


4* 


1 


If 


Sept. 11 . . 


2 


21 


5 9 


10 5 


34f 


10 


11 












April 30.. 






5 9± 


11 1 


38* 


11 


m 


* 


10 


3f 


1 


u 


Sept. 11 . . 


3 


23 


5 5 


9 7 


34 


10* 


12 












April 30 . . 






5 5f 


10 2 


37* 


11* 


13* 


f 


9 


3* 


1 


u 


Sept. 11 . . 


4 


23 


5 7i 


9 13 


37 


10* 


12 












April 30. . 






5 7f 


10 8 


3S* 


11* 


13 


1 
2 


9 


H 


1* 


1 


Sept. 11 . . 


5 


23 


5 H 


9 10 


36 


10 


11 












April 30 . . 






5 S£ 


10 6 


37 


10* 


12 


* 


10 


1 




1 


Sept. 11 . 


6 


23 


5 9* 


11 3 


36* 


11 


12 












April 30.. 






5 9i 


11 12 


38* 


11* 


13 


£ 


9 


2 


£ 


1 


Sept. 11 . . 


7 


23 


5 9 


10 6 


36 


lOf 


12 












April 30.. 






5 9* 


10 11 


3S* 


11 


13 


i 


5 


2* 


i 


1 


Sept. 11 . . 


8 


24 


5 8| 


10 8 


35 


lOf 


12f 












April 30.. 






5 9± 


11 6 


40 


lit 


14 


i 

i 


12 


5 


i 


u 


Sept. 11 . . 


9 


2G 


5 6J 


9 5 


33 


10 


11* 




, 








April 30.. 






5 6f 


9 11* 


36 


10* 


12f 


1 


~6* 


3 


i 


u 


Sept. 11 . . 


10 


2Gf 


5 11$ 


12 6 


41 


11* 


13 












April 30.. 






5 llf 


13 1 


42 


11* 


14 


I 


9 


1 


a 


1 


Sept. 11 : . 


11 


28 


5 7f 


10 10 


37 


10* 


12* 












April 30.. 






5 8i 


11 9 


40 


llf 


13f 


4 


13 


3 


n 


li 


Sept. 11 .. 


12 


2S 


5 10| 


10 9 


37 


10* 


13 












April 30.. 






5 11 


11 11 


40 


111 


14 


* 


16 


3 


H 


1 


The men composing this detachment had been irregnla 


rly S€ 


'lected, 


the youngest being 19, the eldest 28, the average age 24; 


and, 


after a 


period of eight months' training, the increase in the me 


asur 


emeuts 


of the men were— 












Weight. 


Chest. 


Forearm. 


U] 


Dper 


arm. 




Lbs. 


In. 


In. 




In. 






The smallest gain . . 


5 


1 


A 

4 




1 








The largest gain . . . 


16 


5 


n 




If 








The average gain . . 


10 


2| 


t 




If 

















APPENDIX 



295 



APPENDIX VII. 

Taken from Maclarerfs u Physical Education.'''' Showing the result 
of one yearns continuous practice. 

The following Table shows in another form the Results of tiik 
System ; not by Brief Courses or Periods of Voluntary Attend- 
ance, but by a Year's Steady Practice from Birthday to Birthday, 
with two Articled Pupils, the Younger being 16, the Elder 20: 







MEASUREMENTS, Etc. 




INCREASE. 






■+J 








^j 


jj 








CD 




6 


"Sb 


60 


-I—) 

CO 

CD 


^S 


S a 


rG 

fee 


to 






CD ti 

AC 


O 


Date. 


< 
Yrs. 


<d 


CD 

St. Lbs. 


-a 
Q 

In. 


O U 

In. 


In. 


PP 
In. 


Lbs. 


V 
In. 


O ^ 
In. 


In. 




Ft. In. 


A. 


1861, Oct. 17. 


16 


5 2f 


T 10 


31 


s 


9* 














1862, Apr. IT. 


i< 


5 4 


8 12 


34f 


10 


11* 


1* 


16 


3* 


2 


2 




" Oct. IT. 


IT 


5 4f 


9 3 


36 


10 


11* 


* 


5 


If 


(t 


(( 












Subsequent 






















Measurement. 














1863, Mar. 23. 


18 


5 6f 


10 10 


3Ti 


11* ! 13 

j 


14 


21 


1* 


li 


If 


B. 


1862, Feb. 24. 


20 


5 8* 


10 13 


34 


Hi 11* 














" Aug. 24. 


<t 


5 S£ 


11 4 


3Si 


12 j 12f 


1 


5 


4* 


* 


1 




1862, Feb. 24. 


21 


u 


ii n 


40 i 


12i ! 13i 


(< 


3£ 


li 


1 


i 


T 


hus iu the year's work the increase was — 












Height. 


Weight. 


Chest. 


Fore- 
arm. 


U 

a 


pper 
rm. 






' In. 


Lbs. 


In. 




In. 




In. 




With the younger 


2 


21 


5 




2 




2 






With the eld 


31" 


«. 


8* 


6 




li 




H 

















CONCLUSION. 

In the first eleven chapters of this little book attempt has been 
made to call attention both to defects and lacks, resulting largely 
from not taking rational daily exercise, and to what such exercise 
has accomplished wherever it has been thoroughly tried. In the 



296 APPENDIX. 

last two chapters have been suggested not a long and difficult 
system of gymnastic exercises needing a fully equipped gymnasium, 
a trained instructor, and years of work to master, but rather a 
few plain and simple exercises for any given part or for the whole 
body, and hints as to how to distribute the little time to be given 
to them daily. The teacher, the parent — the child even, without 
the aid of either — the young man or woman, the middle-aged and 
the old, will all find variety enough of work, which, while free from 
risk, will still prove sufficiently vigorous to insure to each a good 
allowance of daily exercise. All else that is needed is a good de- 
gree of the steadiness and perseverance which are generally insep- 
arable from everything worth accomplishing. 



THE END. 



